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HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN. 



BV 

JOSEPH HAYEN, D.D., LL.D., 

ZiATB PROrESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGT IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINART, 

CHICAGO, ILL., AND LATE PROFESSOR OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL 

PHILOSOPHY IN AMHERST COLLEGE, AND IN THE UNIYERSITT 

OP CHICAGO — AND AUTHOR OF "MENTAL PHILOSOPHY," 

"MORAL PHILOSOPHY," AND "STUDIES IN 

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY." 



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NEW YORK: 

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NO. 8 MUERAY STREET. 

1876. 







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INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



The preparation of the following work ran parallel 
with the studies which filled the life of the author, and 
its completion and revision for publication was his last 
work. It is now put forth as a fitting complement to the 
*' Studies in Philosophy and Theology," and to the treatises 
on " Mental Philosophy " and on " Moral Philosophy " 
which have been so favorably received by the public. It 
will, as we think, be welcomed not only by those who have 
been the pupils of its author, either through his lecture- 
room or through its works, but by that large and increas- 
ing class of thoughtful minds who will be interested in the 
history of what the human mind has done in " the no- 
blest study of mankind." 

The labor and enthusiasm of Dr. Haven's life was 
largely given to the presentation of that history, as viewed 
from his own characteristic stand-point of full loyalty at 
once to the word of God and to the convictions of the human 
mind, first to his classes in collegiate and professional study, 
and afterward to those intelligent thinkers, who are still 
pursuing " liberal education" in the midst of the activities 
of adult life. It is hoped that this book may not only 
be found valuable for study and reference in educational 
institutions, but that it may continue and extend that use- 
fulness in the general community upon which its author 
seemed to be entering when he was called away. 

J. Emeesok. 
Beloit College, Wis., February, 1876. 



I 



AUTHORITIES. 



IiS" the preparation of the following pages, the works 
of the authors themselves, so far as extant and accessible, 
haye been the chief source of authority as to their 
respective systems. In addition to these, the historical 
statements of Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, and 
Cicero among ancient writers — the historical works of 
Eitter, Tennemann, Fries, Krug, Schwegler, and Ueber- 
weg among the Germans — of Cousin, Tissot, Renouvier 
among the French — of Archer Butler, and Lewes, in 
England, have been carefully studied in the preparation 
of the chapters on ancient philosophy ; of whom Eitter 
(History, of Ancient Philosophy, 4 vols.), Tennemann 
(Manual of the History of Philosophy), Schwegler (Ges- 
chichte der Philosophie), and Ueberweg (History of Phil- 
osophy, Vol. i.) have been the chief guides ; while in 
modern philosophy, Schwegler (as above). Cousin (His- 
toire de la Philosophie, 2 vols.), Lewes (Biographical 
History of Philosophy), and Morell (History of Modern 
Philosophy) have been the principal aids. Damiron (His- 
toire de la Philosophie en France au XIX. Siecle), Eenou- 
vier (Manuel de la Philosophie Moderne), and Hegel 
(Geschichte der Philosophie, 3 vols.), have also been 
consulted. 






CONTENTS. 



PART FIEST.— ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

PAes 
Introduction. — General OutliDe and Divisions 1 



PEEIOD L—PRE-SOCEATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Ionian School. — Thales. Anaximander. Anaximenes. 

Heraclitus. Diogenes of Apollonia. Anaxagoras 5 

CHAPTER II. 
The Italian School. — Pythagoras 37 

CHAPTER HI. 

The Eleatic School. — Zenophanes. Parmenides. Zeno of 

Elea. Empedocles 44 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Sophists. — Protagoras, Gorgias 64 



PERIOD II.— THE SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

CHAPTER I. 
Socrates. — Life and Doctrines 74 



IV CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER II. 

PAOB 

Immediate Successors. — The Cyrenaic School. — Aristip- 
pus. The Cynic School. — Antistlienes. Diogenes. The 
Megaric School. — Euclid of Megara 93 

CHAPTER III. 

Plato. — Life ; Method ; Psychology ; Theology ; Ethics ; Poli- 
tics ; Physics . 103 

CHAPTER IV. 

Aristotle, — Life ; General Outline ; Logic ; Metaphysics ; 

Physics; Ethics 133 



PERIOD III.— POST-SOORATIO PHILOSOPHY. 

CHAPTER L 
The Sceptics. — Pyrrho. Timon of Athens 169 

CHAPTER II. 
The Epicureans. — Epicurus. Character and Doctrines 170 

CHAPTER in. 

The Stoics. — Zeno of Citium. Cleanthes. Chrysippus. Their 

System ; Logic ; Physics ; Ethics 177 

CHAPTER IV. 
The New Academy.— Arcesilaus. Carneades 190 

CHAPTER V. 
Greek Philosophy in Rome. — Cicero 195 

CHAPTER VL 

Jewish- Alexandrian Philosophy and Neo-Platonism. — 
1. Jewish- Alexandrian — Aristobulus. Philo. 3. Neo- 
Platonic — Plotinua. Porphyry. lamblichus. Proclus... 300 



C if T E K T S. 



PAKT SECOND.— MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 

CHAPTER I. 

TASB 

Introductory. — Scholastic Philosophy of the Middle 
Ages. — Johannes Scotus. Eoscellinus. Anselm. Abe- 
lard. Alexander of Hales. Albert the Great. Thomas 
Aquinas. Duns Scotus. William of Occam. Eckhart of 
Strasburg 207 

CHAPTER II. 

Bacon and the Inductive System. — Life and Character of 
Bacon. Method. JNovum Organ um. Instauratio Magna. 
Defects.. Influence 217 

CHAPTER III. 

Rene Descartes. — The Age. The Man. The System. Prin- 
cipal Works. Effect. Tendency 229 

CHAPTER IV. 
Spinoza. — Personal History. Doctrines 246 

CHAPTER V. 
Malebranche. — Life and Works. System 259 

CHAPTER VI. 
Leibnitz. — Life. Doctrines. Monadology. Optimism 270 

CHAPTER VII. 
Hobbes. — Personal Character. System 280 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Locke. — Life and Character. System. Tendency 288 

CHAPTER IX. 

Successors of Locke in England and France. — Hartley. 

Priestly. Condillac. Coudorcet 305 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

PAOB 

Berkeley. — Life. Doctrine of Idealism 308 

CHAPTER XI. 
Hume. — Life and Character. Nihilism 314 



CHAPTER XII. 

\\ The Scotch Philosophy. — Dr. Thomas Reid. Life and Doc- 
trines. Immediate Knowledge 318 

CHAPTER XIIL 

Successors op Reid.— 1. Dugald Stewart. 2. Dr. *P|iomas 

Brown 333 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The German Philosophy. — Immanuel Kant. Personal 

Sketch. System 347 

CHAPTER XV. 

Successors of Kant. — 1. Reinhold. 2. Fichte. Life. Sys- 
tem. Subjectivity 363 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Successors op Kant. — 3. Schelling. Life and Doctrines. 

4. Hegel. Personal History. System 377 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Recent Philosophy of Great Britain. — 1. Sir William 
Hamilton and the Scotch Philosophy. Doctrine of Nat- 
ural Realism. 2. The Positive Philosophy. Mill. Spen- 
cer. Bain. 3. Later Forms of Materialism. Tyndall. 
Huxley. Maudsley 389 



INTRODUCTION. 



GENEKAL OUTLIlSrE AOT) DIVISIONS OF THE 

COUESE. 

The most general and obvious division of the history of 
philosophy is into ancient and modern ; the former extend- 
ing from the earliest times of which we have historic record 
to the Christian era ; the latter embracing the course of 
philosophic thought within that era. 

For us, with the records and resources at our present 
command, the history of Ancient Philosophy must be 
chiefly that of G-recian philosophy. It was there that, so 
far as known to us, speculative inquiry into the origin and 
causes of things first assumed a scientific form. That it 
first commenced there, is not at all probable. No nation, it 
is reasonable to suppose, has ever existed, possessing any 
considerable degree of civilization and culture, which has 
not also exercised itself upon those great problems of 
human thought which in all ages present themselves to the 
reflecting mind. Egjrpt undoubtedly had her philosophy 
before the days of Abraham and the Pyramids ; India had 
hers. But neither in Egypt, nor in India, did philosophic 
speculation assume, so far as yet appears, a strictly scientific 
form; nor do we know what was, in the earliest times, the 
philosophy of either. 

The same may be said of China. A philosophy of some 
sort undoubtedly existed in all these countries long prior to 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

i 

I the Grecian; but it would seem to have been rather of a 

theological or mythological, than of a scientific and 
rational character. 

Of the Indian philosophy, if such it may be called, suf- 
ficient is known to satisfy us that, whatever its treasures, 
it casts little light on the progi'ess of the human mind, in 
its search for truth, and has little to do with the subsequent 
course of philosophic investigation. The attempt to trace 
i\ back to a Hindoo origin the subsequent Grecian speculations 

is neither necessary nor reasonable. Eitter, while he admits 
that the derivation is very doubtful, attaches too much 
importance to the Indian cosmogonies as the possible source 
of subsequent theories. Much more probable is it that the 
Grecian philosophy had its roots in the valley of the Nile, 
where, as we know, some of its chief thinkers wandered, 
and for a time dwelt and studied. 

Nor can we with better reason trace the ancient philos- 
ophy to Hebrew sources. The Hebrew and Patriarchal 
families had what was better than a philosophy, a revelation. 
For them, if not for us, the first verse of the first chapter 
of Genesis settles the whole question, so long in discussion 
in the schools of philosophy, as to the origin and first cause 
of things. A philosophy in the scientific sense the 
Hebrews certainly had not; nor was the Hebrew mind of a 
speculative or philosophic character. 

For reasons now stated, we begin, then, the history of 
ancient philosophy with that of Greece. It is the first pure 
philosophy known to us, the first earnest attempt to reach by 
speculative inquiry the sources of knowledge and the causes 
of things, of which we have any full and satisfactory account. 
It is the earliest definitely known philosophy which exerts 
a positive influence on the subsequent efforts of the human 
mind in its search for truth. The reasons for such a course 
are well stated by Schwegler (Geschichte der Philosophic 
im Umriss, § 2). 

Of the Grecian philosophy, the most natural and obvious 



INTRODUCTION". 3 

division is that into the three periods most distinctly marked 
in the progress of the Grecian mind, each having character- 
istics of its own by which it stands apart and forms an epoch 
by itself. These are, the period prior to Socrates; the 
period of Socrates and his immediate disciples and succes- 
sors ; the period subsequent, which also closes the history of 
Greek philosophy. Taking Socrates as the cent?:al stand- 
point, and reckoning each way from him, we have the Pre- 
Socratic, the 8ocratic, and the Post-Socratic periods or 
epochs. 

These again are divided into several schools, and each 
school numbers its several philosophers, differing somewhat 
in their views, yet so far agreeing as to admit of being 
classed together. Under the first, or Pre-Socratic period, 
there are four of these schools : the Ionian, the Italian, the 
Eleatic, the Sophistic. As designated according to their 
general character, rather than their geographical origin, 
these might be named the materialistic, the mystic, the 
rationalistic, and the sceptic schools ; for such were their 
prevailing tendencies. Under the Socratic period, there 
were, besides that of Socrates himself, the Cyrenaic, the 
Cynic, and the Megaric schools, the school of Plato, called 
also the Academy, and that of Aristotle, or the Peripatetic 
school. Under the Post-Socratic period, there were the 
Sceptic, the Epicurean, the Stoic, the New Academy, as 
also, later, the Jewish -Alexandrian, schools. 

These schools follow each other in the logical develop- 
ment of thought, and in the main also chronologically, 
though not always strictly so — one school sometimes over- 
lapping or partly contemporaneous with another — the 
principle of arrangement being that of the doctrines 
taught, rather than a strictly chronological succession. 
Indeed it is impossible to adopt any classification except 
the most general one ; nor is it necessary. In fact, scarcely 
two historians agree in their classification of the different 
schools, and the different philosophers under each. 



!1 



PERIOD FIRST. 



THE PEE-SOOEATIO PHILOSOPHY. 

If we compare the schools of the first period with each 
other, we find it characteristic of them all to search for 
the first principle or ground of things. The Ionian 
sought it in some form of matter ; the Italian in number; 
the Eleatic, in pure being ;. the Sophists in the subjective 
thought — (Ich-Reit, as Schwegier expresses it). The Ionian 
school was materialistic, and empiric ; speculated on the 
outer world, its origin, nature, cause, and essence — the first 
principle which lies beneath all its changing phenomena ; — 
made this external world the chief object of inquiry, but 
not without reference to the general law of our own being. 
The chief names included under this school, if we take 
this as the general characteristic, are Thales, Anaxi- 
mander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Diogenes of ApoUonia, 
and Anaxagoras. 

The Italian school was mathematical and ideal in char- 
acter, mystic withal ; speculated on nature, but in another 
direction and method; found in number the essence of all 
things ; applied its theories to practical matters, to society 
and the state. Pythagoras is the chief name, disciples are 
numerous, but no writings remain. 

The Eleatic school was in general tendency rationalis- 
tic. It carried out yet further the trains of inquiry started 
by the preceding schools, and was itself in some measure 



THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 5 

the natural result of these schools. It brought out dis- 
tinctly the difference, already indicated by the Italian 
school, between reason and the senses, and gave the prefer- 
ence to the former, allowing little faith in the latter. Its 
chief teachers are Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, and 
Empedocles. 

The Sophistic school, — named from the Sophists who 
composed it, — was sceptical in character, carried yet further 
the doctrine of the preceding schools, and denied the credi- 
bility not only of sense, but of reason; denied the reality of 
truth and the possibility of human knowledge. Protag- 
oras and Gorgias are the chief philosophers of this school. 

With this general comparison of the several schools we 
proceed to the more careful study of each in its order 
as already named. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 



Epoch of this school. — Its place in history occupies 
about two centuries ; from about 600 to 400 B. c. 

In the first of these centuries Cyrus and Darius were in 
power, and Daniel, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel were prophets. 
Afterward came Artaxerxes and his successors in power, 
and the later Jewish prophets appeared. 

It was also the era of Confucius and Zoroaster. 

The Ionian colonies at that time were independent, 
flourishing, commercial ; the birth-place of Grecian philos- 
ophy and science. 

The point of view of this sect of philosophers, as 
already stated, is experimental or physical. It was 
the philosophy of nature. It was reasonable and natu- 
ral — nay, almost a matter of necessity — ^that the first inquiries 
should take this course. Yet not solely, or indeed chiefly 



.! 



6 THE lOlflAN SCHOOL. 

naturalists were these men. They were naturalists with a 
Mglier aim and end than merely to understand physics. 
They made this the starting point and stepping stone to 
much higher results. " To find the law of his own being 
by meditating on the external world/' says Maurice/^ was 
what each proposed to himself." What did they attain ? 
Much, I answer. They began with nothing, that is, they 
they had no past speculations and philosophies to fall back 
upon. They took the first steps in a new field and a 
new direction. Of course their first attempts were 
imperfect and crude ; must so appear to us with our 
philosophy of the nineteenth century. Strange if in 
twenty-five centuries the human mind had made no pro- 
gress in speculative research, yet with these rude beginnings, 
this school, at the very outset of the course of human phi- 
losophy, did reach certain very important results. They 
made the discovery of an ordaining, directing intelligence, 
mind in distinction from matter, the origin and first cause 
of mundane existence, — ^intelligence immaterial, eternal, 
supreme, one. Is not this a grand discovery for those early 
speculators to make ? They discovered also the immateri- 
ality of the soul. In conducting their physical researches 
they likewise arrived at some conclusions which you will 
readily recognize as anticipations of modern science, as 
that the earth has passed through a series of tranformations 
in reaching its present state ; that man is the last result, 
the successor of races less perfect, — of which he is perhaps 
the crowning result and transformation. 

These lonians may be again divided into two classes, as 
they pursued two different lines of thought and inquiry : 
the dynamists and the mechanists — a distinction much in- 
sisted upon by the former historians. The former find the 
vital principle of the world, the essence and origin of things, 
in some one simple principle, as air, fire, etc. — a principle 
susceptible of modification and transformation, out of which 
result the present various systems of things. The latter, 



THE lONIAIif SCHOOL. 



ineclianists, instead of deriving all things from some one 
single principle, admit many sucli, more or less, and these 
immutable (See Mallet, Hist. Ion., pp. 17, 18). 



! 



§ 1. — Thales. 

Epoch or time when he flourished. According to Apol- 
lodorus, he was born 35 Olymp., and died at 70, that is, born 
about 639 B. c. But this, according to Ritter, is doubtful. 

Was born at Miletus, at that time a flourishing commer- 
cial city of considerable importance in Asia Minor, not yet 
under foreign domination. 

Thales was one of the seven wise men of Greece. This 
shows his general reputation and influence among his 
countrymen. He was a man of note and mark in his native 
city; possessed no little political power and influence, and 
saved the city from a compact with Croesus against Cyrus. 
He was noted as a geometer and astronomer, and, according 
to Laertius, was the first to determine the length of the solar 
year, and to note with precision the equinoxes and solstices 
(Diog. i. 24. 27). Herodotus makes him predict a great 
eclipse of the sun. Tradition makes him owe his mathemati- 
cal science to Egypt. This is very probable, as the Greeks 
derived both their mythology and science chiefly from 
Egypt. He was the first Baconian philosopher in physics, 
i. e., he took observatiok, as the point of Ms departure 
and the method of his inquiry. The yqyj first of the philos- 
ophers adopted this principle, and it was that of the entire 
school, in fact. Thales left no vjritten works, but taught 
orally. Writing, especially prose writing, was not then 
common in Greece. 

His general theory as a philosopher. 

Thales and all the early philosophers sought for the first 
or elementary principle of things, to reduce to unity the 
manifold plurality and variety of natural phenomena. 
There must be some ground principle at the basis of all 






8 THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 

these phenomena of nature ; some root, some fountain, some 
hidden source whence they all proceed. This, whatever it 
be, from which all things proceed and to which all things 
tend, the one substance that under all modifications re- 
mains unchanged — this, if you can but find it, is the first 
principle of all. And what can this be, what more likely 
to be it, than water, by which all things are begotten and 
nourished. * 

The view of Thales is thus stated by Aristotle. The 
sustenance of all things is moisture, from moisture warmth 
proceeds, from warmth everjrthing living draws its life; also 
all seeds are moist; but the source of moisture is water (Met- 
aph, i. 3). It is thus stated by Fries (vol. i. 103), " Simple 
analogy seems to have guided Thales. The ground under 
our feet is mostly formed of water. Water gives and holds 
all lives. From heaven it comes. To heaven it mounts; 
and back again to the earth it must descend, ever chang- 
ing. From the water, the clouds; from these the light- 
nings; to the lightnings perhaps that heavenly fire of the 
stars is itself allied." Very simple idea, you will say, but 
what more natural? 

The Ionian philosophy, remarks the same writer, seems 
from the first to have fixed upon the unity of the law of 
natural phenomena through evaporation, which, indeed, in 
sacrifice gave the idea of the communication of man with 
the gods. 

The idea of Thales, according to Ritter, is that the 
world is produced from water, as anything is produced 
from its seed ; water being the seed of the earth, which is 
but a growth, a development of a preexisting form of life. 
The entire world, according to this, is a living thing, a 
being gradually forming from an imperfect seed-state, and 
possessing a sort of vitality and soul. 

How nearly, in this view of the gradual formation ox 

* Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. vii. 5 ; Diog. Laertiiis, i. 27 ; Cic. 
Acad. ii. 37 ; Aristotle, de Coelo, 11, 13 ; Cic. de Nat. Deorum, lib. 1. 



THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 



9 



the earth from a previous imperfect and, as it were, seed- 
state, and of the important agency of water as the prime 
element of this transformation, — how nearly in this does the 
old Greek philosophy come to certain modern geological 
theories respecting the aqueous origin and formation of 
the earth. *^ Could anything," says an eloquent writer, 
"be more naturally present to an Ionian mind than the 
uniyersality of water ? Had he not from boyhood upward 
been familiar with the sea ? " 



" There about the beacli lie wandered, nourishing a youth sublime, 
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of time." 

"When gazing abroad upon the blue expanse, hearing the 
mighty waters rolling evermore, and seeing the red sun, 
having spent its fiery energy, sink into the cool bosom of 
the wave, to rest there in peace, how often must he have 
been led to contemplate the all-embracing, all-engulfing 
sea, upon whose throbbing breast the very earth itself 
reposed. This earth how finite, and that welling sea how 
infinite! 

" Once impressed with this idea, he examined the consti- 
tution of the earth. There also he found moisture every- 
where. All things he found nourished by moisture; 
warmth itself he declared to proceed from moisture ; the 
seeds of all things are moist. Water when condensed 
becomes earth. Thus convinced of the universal presence 
of water, he declared it to be the beginning of things." 

It is possible to refer this theory of water as the q-pxv, or 
first principle, to the ancient tradition that the sun and 
stars are born of the sea, out of which they seem to rise. 

The essential points in this theory are not peculiar to 
Thales, indeed, but common to the Ionian philosophers, viz. : 
1, That the world is a living thing ; 2, That it proceeds 
from some simple primary substance, the seed of things not 
yet developed. The peculiarity of his theory, in distinc- 
tion from others, is that he discovered or supposed water 
1* 



^\ 



10 THE lONlAK SCHOOL. 

to be this first principle. In common with the ancients, he 
conceived of matter, not as we do, extended, impenetrable, 
moist, but only as a form of life. He had no idea of inert 
matter. Nor was water with him what the chemist means 
by it, a flnid haying such and such properties, but rather 
the parent and seed of all life. The soul with Thales is the 
principle of motion. Whateyer moves, then, and of course 
whatever lives, has a soul. The universe has ; this great, 
broad, beautiful earth — what is it but a moving, a living 
thing, with a soul animating its giant frame. Simple idea 
this, but not without its beauty and sublimity. 

Plutarch (de Plac. Phil. i. 8), makes Thales the first 
to distinguish between deog, datfioxp, and vpug; the soul of 
the world, a spiritual being, and a human soul separate 
from the body. Yet this distinction is probably of earlier 
origin, as in Hesiod. Nothing hindered Thales from 
teaching the immortality of the soul, since death is only a 
change of existence, a transformation of the soul. Diog- 
enes, accordingly, ascribes this doctrine to him, and Plu- 
tarch intimates or implies it in the above. Schwegler con- 
siders the ideas of a world-soul, of a personal God, and the 
immortality of the soul, to be of later origin ; so also Fries. 
Aristotle ascribes the idea of a creative intelligence to a 
later origin; yet he admits Thales to hold the idea of God — 
as world-soul or nous; and all things to be full of divinity 
(de Anim. i. 5, 15; so Diog. L. i. 27, and Stobseus, Eel. 

Phys. i. 2, vovv Tov Kdafiov). 

Was Thales a theist or an atheist ? Lewes says not fche 
latter ; Ritter and Cousin deny that he was the former, 
and with reason ; so Mallet ; for his gods are not intelligent, 
self-existent, independent of the world ; nor are they crea- 
tors. The cosmogony of Thales corresponds to that of the 
poets and the priests of the age — they made Ocean and 
Tethys the parents of the gods ; so Homer. Diogenes 
Laertius contradicts himself in ascribing to Thales the 
apothegms : that God is unbegotten, and that the world is 



THE lONIAN^ SCHOOL. 



11 



the work of God ; for he elsewhere says that Anaxagoras 
was the first to recognize an intelligence aboye matter. 
Cicero contradicts himself in the same way, — probably 
having in yiew the maxims now cited, — yet ascribing the 
same discovery to Anaxagoras. Aristotle explicitly says 
(Met. i. 3) that Anaxagoras was the first who held this : 
^* When a man comes to announce that there is in nature, 
as among animals, an intelligence which is the cause of the 
order and arrangement in the universe, this man seems 
alone to have preserved his reason amidst the follies of his 
predecessors. Now we know with certitude, that Anaxag- 
oras was the first to enter upon this point of view." Was 
Thales then an atheist ? Eather, we should say, a pantheist ; 
his view is not that of a creator, but of a spirit, or soul, per- 
vading all, and filling -all, and this is his deity (See espec- 
ially Mallet, Histoire de la Philosophic lonienne, article 
Thales). 

The gods of Thales, like man, proceed from the ele- 
mentary moisture ; hence not self-existent, but subject to 
destiny — the blind moving force of the universe. 

The following apothegms are ascribed to Thales, but 
perhaps with insufficient, at least doubtful, authority 
(Diog. L. i. 35, 36, 37 ; Plutarch. Conviv. c. 9). They 
are beyond doubt very ancient proverbs. 

The oldest of beings is God^ the unbegotten, 

The fairest, the world, the work of God. 

The greatest, spa^e, the all-embracing ; 

The swiftest, spirit, the all-penetrating ; 

The mightiest, necessity, the all- controlling ; 

The wisest, time, the all-discovering. 

No thought of man is concealed from God. 

What thou condemnest in another, that do thou not. 

What is the hardest ? To understand thyself. 

What is the easiest ? To advise another. 

Death distinguishes not itself from life. 



/ 



12 THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 



§ 2. — Anaximander. 

• In placing Anaximander next to Thales, I do but fol- 
low the voice and verdict of antiquity, which have assigned 
him that place. It is very doubtful, however, whether he 
does properly rank next in point of time ; still more doubt- 
ful whether he is to be regarded as the disciple of that 
master. The doctrines of the two, however, are nearly 
enough allied to admit of his being classed with the former 
philosopher as of the same school. Apollodorus makes 
him the contemporary and friend of Thales ; so all anti- 
quity. He was born at Miletus, about 611 b. c. ; died 547. 
His general line of thought places him with the mechmiists, 
rather than the dynamists, the first of that school. He 
did not, like Thales, inquire for some one simple element, 
as air, water, etc., from which all things proceed by a 
living force, a development theory, but explains the forma- 
tion of things by the changes and transformations which 
occur in the diverse parts of a whole, composed, not of 
j ^ some few simple principles, as air, water, etc. , but of an 

Ij! indefinite number of elements. (So Eitter.) His elemen- 

,1 tary principle is an abstract one. The Infinite or un- 

ij! limited ; rb aweipov (and this is one), (Aristotle, Phys. i. 4, 

5 ; Sext. Emp. Hyp. Pyrr. iii. 30 ; Adv. Math. vii. 5, ix. 
360; Cic. Acad. ii. 37). 

Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, Eusebius, all state the 
same. The latter says (Praep. Evang. i. 8), *^ Anaximan- 
der, friend of Thales, says the Infinite contains likewise the 
first cause of all things as to generation and destruction." 
It is the all-embracing, the God-like in nature (Arist. Phys. 
iii. 4), (without form or qualities, so Arist. Phy. iii. 4) 
(Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 10). How does he derive the 
universe from this aizEipov, the Infinite ? Not by develop- 
ment of one substance or element into all other things, as 
Thales, by a power inherent in itself, but his apeiron is a 



i|i 



i;i 



THE IOIs"IAK SCHOOL. 



13 



sort of primitive chaos, according to Aristotle (Met. xii. 
2), a melange of elementary substances. 

According to liim, says Simplicius, ''the formation 
takes place, not by transformation of the first principle, 
but by the separation of contraries, by the law of eternal 
moyement." He supposes, eyidently, a necessary moye- 
ment going on incessantly and eternally in the bosom of 
the infinite, which has the effect to disengage from each 
other, elements of a diyerse nature and to bring together 
those that are like, and in this way comes to pass the 
organization and arrangement of material nature. To 
this effect Theophrastus is cited (Simplicius, Phys. 6, 6), 
" Anaximander teaches that by the separation of the infinite, 
particles of the same nature are borne to each other, and 
so what in the all, kv ra Tcavrl, was gold becomes gold, what 
was earth becomes earth, and all things in like manner, not 
as things produced but formerly existing," i. e., in their 
elements. Eusebius thus states the doctrine of Anaximander: 
'' The stars, heavens, earth, all the worlds which fill immen- 
sity, disengage themselves from the bosom of the infinite. 
The generation and destruction are attributed by him to a 
movement circular and inherent in the infinity of things." 
This movement is circular. The earth is cylindrical in 
form. The efficient causes of this disengagement of mat- 
ters are the eternal principles of heat and cold. The idea 
is evidently that of a ehemical transformation or process of 
change, by which certain particles having like nature, or, 
as we should say, having affinity for each other, are first by 
the law of movement set loose or separated from the infi- 
nite, from the chaotic whole, and then in consequence of 
that affinity are brought together, this separation or move- 
ment being itself occasioned by the laws of heat and cold 
eternally ojoerating. 

The formation of the heavenly bodies is on this wise. 

A sort of igneous sphere expands itself above the air 
that surrounds the earth, like the outer rind of a tree, 




14 THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 

which, being broken in many places and into circular frag- 
ments, there result the sun, moon, and stars (Eusebius, 
Prsep. Evang, i. 8). 

A crude theory this, you will say, of the first forma- 
tion of things, yet, viewed as a whole, this chemical theory 
of the world's formation, is it altogether an absurd view for 
one to form who had no revelation, no first chapter of Gene- 
sis to guide him; who had no facts, or experimental philos- 
ophy to assist him, or, if any, but the most limited; who 
could at best form only a mere conjecture, could only imag- 
ine how by this possibility or that the great universe was 
formed? Nay more, this theory of separation and aggrega- 
tion going on by the eternal laws of nature and the eternal 
movement of the infinite, is it altogether unlike some mod- 
ern theories, which bear the proud name of science ? Does 
it not remind one at once of the nebulous theory of La- 
place and of the author of Vestiges of Creation. 

Still nearer the modern scientific theories does our old 
Greek approach, when he comes to speak of the origin and 
formation of man. Man proceeds originally, he thinks, 
from some other form of animal life — some other species 
or race, — since he is not able at first, like other animals, to 
provide himself with sustenance. So Plutarch (de Placit. 
V. 19): "The first animals, according to Anaximander. 
had birth in the watery element, were covered with a sort 
of thorny rind, but after a time they elevated themselves to 
a drier region and their covering burst." Origen, lib. i., 
says that, "he taught that men existed first under the 
form of fishes, and that they inhabited the earth, not until 
they had become able to provide for themselves." 

Bitter, however, maintains that Anaximander did not 
mean that men were born of fishes, but like them had at 
first a scaly or thorny hide, and like them proceeded from 
the mud. 

The doctrine of Anaximander seems to connect itself 
here with that of Thales, viz., that humidity, or that the 



THEIOHIANSCHOOL. 15 

watery element, is tlie source of the first life. A direct con- 
sequence of this doctrine is that man, in his present form 
at least, was not at first in existence but is an ulterior 
form of life ; that, in a word, there are successive phases 
in the organization of nature, and that man is the last 
result. In this broad and general principle does he not 
again anticipate the conclusions of modern science ! What- 
ever may be said of the fishy theory of man's origin, which, 
by the way, is essentially reproduced in the Vestiges of Cre- 
ation, is not the grand principle of successive formation 
one that all science goes more and more to confirm ? 

Anaximander was the first, it would seem, to use the 
term apx'fj for the principle of things. His primary being or 
existence is a unity, the to nav, whence everything proceeds, 
and to which everything tends to revert. The contraries, 
as heat and cold, counteract each other. The sun dries the 
earth, etc. And so all contraries neutralize each other 
and all resolves again, at least such is the tendency, back 
to unity or chaos. The infinite is always in a state of 
incipiency, moreover, tending to a new phase of things, a 
new modification. His system approaches that of Thales, 
then, in these two essential points : 1, It assumes the 
unity of the primitive principle ; 2, It admits humidity 
to be the source not indeed of all existence, but at least 
of all animal life. The difference, in the main, is that 
Thales takes the concrete, Anaximander, the abstract, view 
of things. 

Anaximander seems to have been a fatalist. This eter- 
nal movement of the infinite is governed by a sort of fatal- 
ism. There is no trace in all this theory, of the intelligent 
nous — the conscious mover and orderer of things, the self- 
existent one of the later philosophers, nor even of the 
all-diffused mind or soul of the world of Thales. In this 
respect Anaximander is far behind Thales, He is neither a 
theist nor a pantheist, but an atheist. So Eusebius affirms, 
borrowing the language of Plutarch. " Anaximander," say 



16 THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 

tliey, ^^ suppresses all efficient cause. In fact, the infinite is. 
after all, only matter. Now matter produces nothing, 
unless we admit at the same a being who is the producing 
cause " (Euseb. Prsep. Evang. xiv. 14). Aristotle also takes 
the same view, viz., that Anaximander admits no divinity 
except the infinite, which is divine because immortal and 
incorruptible. 

Eenouvier, however, thinks that he may have admitted 
the existence of the popular gods, but made them subject 
to his law of necessity ; and also that he and Thales are 
alike in this, both making their one principle to be the 
single cause and element of all that is. 

Anaximander was great also as an astronomer. 

Eusebius (Prgep. Evang. x. 11) attributes to him the con- 
struction of gnomons, by which to mark the course of the 
sun and the seasons, and to indicate solstices and equinoxes. 
Diogenes Laertius (ii. 1) makes him the first to determine 
the perimeter of the earth and the sea, and to construct a 
sphere, also maps of the earth, and globes. In his system, 
the earth, as in most ancient systems, is placed in the cen- 
tre of the universe and stands fast, because in the centre, 
other globes moving around it (Aristotle, de Coelo, ii. 13), 
and is spherical, or, as Eusebius says (Praep. Evang. i. 8), 
cylindrical, having its diameter one-third its height. Ac- 
cording to Plutarch (de Plac. Phil. ii. 21, 25), the sun is 
twenty-eight and the moon nineteen times greater than the 
earth. In all this you perceive the leading tendency of the 
whole school of Ionian philosophers, i. e., to physical in- 
quiry. The problem with them was to account for the 
universe. 

§ 3. — Anaximenes. 

The friend and pupil of Anaximander, according to 
some authorities ; according to others, not born till after 
the death of the latter, and so of course not his pupil. 
Eitter dates his birth in the 63d Olympiad, about 527 b. c. 
Fries dates it about twenty years earlier, in the first year 



THE lOKIAlsr SCHOOL. 17 

of tlie 58t]i Olympiad. In his general system, he seems 
more nearly allied to Thales than to Anaximander. Hence 
Eitter and others place him next in succession to the former. 
So also does Aristotle. CJironologicdlly , at least, he does not 
belong there, however. 

His problem and grand endeavor are the same with • 
those of the whole Ionian school — to account for the vari- ^ 

ous phenomena of nature as to their cause and origin ; to 
hit upon the one prime element of all, whence all proceeds. 
In common with Thales and Anaximander, he assumes the 
unity of that first principle ; in common with Thales, he 
assumes the concrete, abandoning the abstract principle of 
Anaximander. It is no longer the infinite that is the 
source of all, but some specific and individual element, 
viz., the atmosphere or air, the surrounding and all-embra- 
cing ether (Arist. Met. i. 3 ; Sext. Emp. Hyp. Pjrrr. iii. 
30; Adv. Math. vii. 5 ; Diog. L. ii. 2 ; Cic. Acad. Quest, ii. 
37). By the condensation and rarefaction of this element 
may all the phenomena of the external world be explained. 
So thought Anaximenes, and he was, so far as we know, the 
first to take that direction. This air, or ether, whatever it 
be that surrounds us and all things, as a robe, in its invisible 
folds, is the beginning, whence all things proceed, to which 
all things tend, in which all things are again lost. Through 
condensation the cold particles precipitate themselves in 
the form of wind, cloud, water, earth. Through the oppo- 
site ^orocess — rarefaction — the atmosphere becomes fire 
and tends upward. The earth thus once formed, a vapor 
exhales ; this expands, begets fire ; the fire, meteorizing 
itself, becomes stars. On the contrary, the air, compress- 
ing, forms clouds ; if the process goes on, rain is ex- 
pressed in the same way ; earth and even rocks result from 
the same process carried to its last degree. Thus incessantly 
transformed, the air dwells in an eternal movement which 
produces life — all beings — the souls of men — the gods them- 
selves. All its physical qualities, as heat, cold, etc., are 



18 



THE lOKIAN SCHOOL. 



only diverse modes of its being. In fine, it is the one 
existence, the being unique and primary, of which the 
natural qualities are only so many inherent and eyer-vary- 
ing modes. 

Plutarch (de Plac. Phil. i. 3) makes him say, Our soul 
is air, as such it goyerns us. The whole world is encom- 
passed and goyerned by air, so that eyen, says Plutarch, he 
names the air God (so also Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 10), and 
makes the gods proceed from it. Here seems to be a com- 
parison of nature with self ; the soul goyerning us, as the 
air does the uniyerse. Maurice regards this as a new and 
important step in philosophy. 

As to the general plan of the uniyerse, he held, accord- 
ing to some, that the orbits of the stars were aboye, the air 
in the middle, water and earth below. Aristotle (de Ccelo, 
ii. 13), howeyer, makes him teach, that the earth reposes 
in the midst, lying upon the lower air and upborne by it on 
account of its breadth (like a board on the water). He 
also represents him as giving to the earth a perpendicular, 
rather than a circular motion. According to most, he gives 
the earth a flat figure. The sun, moon, and stars proceed 
from the earth, inasmuch as composed of earth and fire. 
The sun keeps its heat by means of the swiftness of its 
motion. He seems to have discovered the borrowed light 
of the moon, and to have explained its eclipses by the inter- 
vention of the earth. According to Eitter he also discov- 
ered the obliquity of the ecliptic. 

On the whole we agree with Eitter that the system of 
this philosopher seems to be an advance on that of Thales 
in two points : 1, It does not regard the world after the 
analogy of a seed-state, but of the human soul; 2, Does not, 
with Thales and one may add, Anaximander, derive all 
things from a state of unevolved life, but regards the prin- 
ciple of production as being from all time fully evolved and 
developed. 

Plutarch is authority for the fact, that Anaximeiies 



THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 



19 



recognizes the air as the elementary or first principle — the 
infinite. So Cicero de Nat. Deor. i. 10. So Diog. Laer- 
tius. Sext. Emp. classes him with those who held to a 
single principle, and adds that his principle is air. (See 
passage Adv. Math. ix. quoted in Mallet, 101.) 



§ 4. — ^Heraclitus. 

Epoch not precisely ascertained. According to Dioge- 
nes Laertius (ix. 1) he flourished in the 69th Olympiad, or 
about 500 years b. c. We may suppose him to have been 
born some thirty or thirty-five years before ; or about the 
time that Babylon was taken by Cyrus, and the Persian 
empire founded. This makes him subsequent to Thales, 
Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Pythagoras, and contempo- 
rary with Parmenides. Belonged to the first family in 
Ephesus. Averse to social intercourse, with little sympa- 
thy for the race to which he belonged (Diog. L. ix. 2), of 
melancholy temperament, and possessing a taste for phi- 
losophical reflection, he had no ambition for political hon- 
ors and power, and therefore, at his father's death, declined 
the magistracy of the city. Subsequently the city besought 
him to draw up a code of laws, but he declined ; giving as 
a reason the not very flattering opinion that the corruption 
of the Ephesians was so inveterate as to be beyond remedy. 

Now Ephesus was, beyond question, not a pattern of 
morals and virtue, but for that reason all the more in 
need of good law ; and we cannot help suspecting that the 
fault was partly in the man and not wholly in the city, 
corrupt as it was. (He was one of nature's reformers, cut 
out for that ; a regular Grarrisonian by birth, a sort of 
Wendell Philhps or Carlyle.) Still it is not impossible that 
the prevailing corruption of the cities of Greece was one 
cause of his profound melancholy. On the banishment of 
his friend Hermodorus he broke off all intercourse with 
the citizens, and passed his time playing with the children 



te 



20 THE I ONIAK SCHOOL. 

before the temple of Diana. Finally quitted Epliesus and 
retired to the mountains, Hying on roots and herbs. This 
sort of life induced dropsy. He returns to Ephesus, but 
his complaint is incurable, and he dies at the age of sixty. 
With all his cynical propensities and acerbity of tempera- 
ment, he still loyed his country and his native city, and 
would not consent, bad as Ephesus was, to go to Athens, 
where he was in high repute ; nor to the court of Darius, 
then in the height of his power as conqueror of India. 
The letter of the king inviting him, and his reply, are given 
by Diog. Laert. and may be regarded as probably authentic. 
" The king Darius, son of Hystaspes, to Heraclitus of 
Ephesus, a man renowned for his science: Salutation. Thou 
hast written a book on ^ ISTature,' difficult to comprehend 
and explain. In certain passages, interpreted literally, 
this book seems to furnish a remarkable explanation of 
this universe and of the beings that it contains, and of the 
laws divine which preside over the movements which are 
going on in it. But many other passages are obscure, so 
much so that men, even the most versed in science, hnoiu 
not how to find there thy thought. Wherefore, I, Darius, 
son of Hystaspes, wish to become thy disciple in the science 
of the Greeks. Come, then, at once to my presence in my 
royal abode. The G-reeks, for the most of the time, have 
little esteem for sages, and look with disdain on their 
admirable instructions. With me, on the contrary, every 
distinction awaits thee. Thou shalt find here every day 
new honors, and a life accommodated to all thy tastes." 

If Darius really wrote this letter, he deserves to be had 
in everlasting remembrance of all philosoj^hers and povertj^- 
stricken men of letters — deserved, at any rate, a more civil 
reply than he got, according to the following. ^* Heraclitus 
of Ephesus to King Darius, son of Hystaspes : Salutation. 
All men forsake truth and justice, to abandon themselves — 
fools that they are — to avarice and vanity. As for me, 
stranger to every thought of this kind, and desirous of 



THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 21 

shunning the disgust and envy which always accompany 
high distinctions, / shall not come to the court of Persia, 
content as I am with the little that I possess, and which is 
amply sufficient for my desires." (The fellow should have 
been sent to the Ephesian State Lunatic Asylum, says the 
indignant nineteenth century, which he was not, for two 
reasons, as it seems to me ; first, the said asylum was no- 
where to be found; and secondly, he was not such a fool 
after all, for preferring a life of independent poverty to one 
of dependent ease and affluence. ) 

After perusing the above response of Heraclitus, we per- 
ceive the force and latent shrewdness of a remark of Aristotle, 
which, if that grim logician ever indulged in wit, we should 
certainly pronounce a capital piece of satire. As it is, we think 
the old G-reek must have drawn down one eye-lid a little at 
the corner when he wrote it .• that Heraclitus was one of 
those men with whom their own opinions are as valid as 
science itself. Darius and his wise men were not alone in 
finding it difficult to understand Heraclitus' book. It was 
universally acknowledged to be one of the obscurest books, 
as it was one of the first, ever written. The fragments that 
remain of it are sufficient to justify that opinion. Euripides 
sent a copy of it to Socrates, who with his accustomed 
keenness said of it, '^What I understand of it is very good, 
and I am willing to believe the same is true of what I do 
not comprehend." This obscurity may have been owing, as 
Eitter supposes, partly to the early infancy of prose philo- 
sophical writing, partly to the lofty range of speculation in 
which he indulged ; hence his thoughts were unable to ex- 
press themselves adequately. His style is concise and 
broken, abrupt, of course obscure. Not unaware of this, he 
compares himself to the Sibyl, who "speaking with an 
inspired mouth, without a smile, inornate and unpeffumed, 
doth pierce through centuries by the power of the Grod." 
Others, as Mallet in his very able work on the history of the 
Ionian philosophy, ascribe this obscurity to an intention of 



22 THEIOKIANSCHOOL. 

the author not to make his work the common property of 
vulgar and the reflecting, but to confine it to the capacity 
of those only who could appreciate it. So Descartes subse- 
quently. He deposited his book in the temple of Artemis. 
(On the obscurity of Heraclitus, see Aristotle, Rhet. iii. 5 ; 
Oic. de Fin. ii. 5.) 

There is much dispute as to the title of his work and 
its chief contents. By some it is regarded as a treatise on 
morals (Diog. L. ix. 12 ; Sext. Emp. adv. Math. viii. 7) ; 
by others, on physics ; by others, as highly metaphysical in 
character. The probability is, it was neither exclusively, 
and all at once — a heterogeneous and confused collection of 
the opinions of the author on all subjects connected with 
philosophy. So Eitter i. 234. Diog. Laert. says the work 
was in three parts : physics, politics, and theology. On the 
whole, we may, with Mallet (Hist. Ion. Phil. 131), regard 
Heraclitus as the first Grecian philosopher who gave philos- 
ophy a wider range than it had previously traversed, and 
included in its sphere, not physics merely, but morals also. 

The point of connection between his philosophy and 
that of the school to which he belongs is not difficult to dis- 
cover. Like all the Ionian philosophers, he seeks a physical 
ground of all phenomena, a principle pervading and in- 
herent in all natural phenomena. As with them all, this 
principle is with him a unity. Moreover, as with the 
dynamists all, and in distinction from the mechanists, it is 
a living principle or unity, a principle of life, growth, 
development that he seeks to discover. Not satisfied with 
tracing all things back to one first principle, as the others 
]iad done, he seeks for the law of development — how all 
things come from this first principle. This principle is 
FIRE, which seemed to him the most powerful, subtle, 
and pervading of all elements. So Aristotle affirms (Met. 
i. 3, de Mundo, c. 5), as also Plutarch (de Plac. Phil. 
i. 3), Diog. Laert. (ix. 7-9), and Cicero (Acad. ii. 37). 
Clement of Alexandria (Strom, v. 599), cites him as 



THE lOKIAN SCHOOL. 23 

sajdng : " The world is not the work of gods or men. 
It always has been and always will be. It is an eternal 
fire, shining and going out by regular laws." (So also 
Plato, Symposium, p. 187; Diog. Laertiusix. 7-9.) From 
this element of fire, by transformation, proceed water, 
earth, and air. Both Clement and Plato notice the resem- 
blance of this to Orpheus. Plato, in the Cratylus (p. 402), 
represents him as holding that all things proceed, by devel- 
opment and transformation, from this one principle, and 
are again resolyed into it, by virtue of a perpetual flux. 
Nature entire resembles a river, which flows incessantly. 
From this perpetual flux of things result life and death ; 
or rather there is neither life nor death — they are in fact 
one and the same thing; just as waking and sleeping, 
youth and age, they follow each other. So Plutarch cites 
him (Consol. ad ApoU. 10). And in yet another passage, 
cited by Plutarch (de Is. et Os. 45), he makes the move- 
ment of things in the world analogous to the vibrations of 
the chord of a bow, or of the lyre — all things in the world 
returning in like manner to the same point, only to go forth 
again, and so in an indefinite series of harmonious move- 
ments, ruled by necessity or destiny (see also Arist. Met. iv., 
5 ; de Coelo, iii. i ; Plutarch, de Plac. Phil. i. 27, 28 ; Cicero 
de Fato. c. 17). 

According to this philosophy, then, fire is the generating 
principle, which by rarefaction and condensation produces 
all things. Condensed, it becomes vapor. Assuming greater 
consistence, it becomes water. Still more condensed, this 
water becomes earth. This he calls the movement from liigJi 
to loio. Inversely, earth, rarefied, becomes water, and so on 
to the rest by evaporation from the sea. This is the move- 
ment /romZo?^; to high. Fire is also the destroyer, as well 
as producer of the world; and this at certain alternate 
periods, in the eternity of time, fixed by the laws of destiny. 

It seems to have been his idea that by opposition of 
parts results harmony of the whole; as in music, the com- 



24 THEIONIANSCHOOL. 

bination of opposites, the sharp and the grave tones, pro- 
duce harmony (Thus explained by Plato in the Symposium, 
and by Aristotle, de Mundo, c. 5. Compare Nic. Ethics, viii. 
8). So in life, there are the opposite natures of male and 
female ; and so throughout. These opposites or contraries 
in nature pass over to each other; life becomes death, death 
becomes in its turn life. Sleep passes into waking, and wak- 
ing into sleep; and so on. Thus universally it is by the 
action of two opposite principles that all movement is 
produced. That principle, of these two opposites, which 
produces generation, he calls war or strife; that which 
produces death, jgeace or concord. Thus fire, in producing 
all things, passes through a series of transformations, by a 
law of repulsion or alteration : this is strife. So also by 
the law of afiinity or assimilation all things resolve again 
into unity, cease to exist individually, die out ; and this 
law of assimilation or death, is peace. 

True, true, we exclaim. It is even thus. Life is war 
and a struggle — is tumult and confusion; the very principle 
of activity is strife. Death, on the contrary — is it not the 
principle of peace ? the strife and tumult end — all is at rest. 
'^For now should I have lain still and been quiet. With 
kings and counsellors of the earth. There the prisoners 
rest together; there the wicked cease from troubling and 
the weary be at rest." 

Fire is a restless thing, incapable of permanence, longs 
to pass into other forms, struggles, strives; and the strife 
goes on, the restless activity, till again by the opposite law 
of affinity, like resolves itself again into like, and peace 
comes, and unity, and death. Eitter supposes that by fire 
he means, not flame but a sort of dry vapor. If so, his 
doctrine nearly resembles that of Anaximenes. He sup- 
poses also that Heraclitus uses the word in a symbolic sense, 
to denote the principle of universal vitality — something 
more than the mere o,pxv of the previous philosopher, not 
a mere beginning, but a life pervading all. 



THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 25 

As to the nature and arrangement of the various parts 
of the universe according to Heraclitus, — what we may call 
his natural philosophy. He supposes the heavens to be 
basins or bowls, the concave part toward the earth, so as 
to catch the evaporations from it, which form flames or 
stars. The sun is the purest of these flames. The stars, 
being farther off, fare not so well, get only poorer and 
impurer evaporations, and of course give light accordingly. 
The sun is just so large as it appears to be, and no larger, 
12 inches in size, (Diog. L. ix. 7) ; it is kindled every 
morning and goes out every night (Arist. Met. 11. 2 ; Plat, 
de Eep. vi. 498). Eclipses of the sun and moon are caused 
by the basins turning round the other side toward us, 
while the monthly changes of the moon are produced by 
the revolution of its basin or reflector round itself (very 
much as a revolving light in a modern lighthouse). Day 
and night, seasons, winds, etc., are all produced by differ- 
ence of evaporation. The evaporation of the sea, being 
impure and humid, extinguishes the lights, while that of the 
land, being pure, rekindles them. So crude and imperfect 
were the notions of that age respecting the structure of the 
universe. As crude and imperfect would ours have been, 
had not observation taken the place of theory, and science 
of conjecture. Viewed as mere conjecture, the bright 
thought of a mind speculating a priori on this subject, I 
know not why the hypothesis of the old G-reek is not as 
reasonable and as probable, in itself considered, as any 
other. The trouble is, that it did not happen to be the 
correct one, and so seems to us a childish affair, because we 
happen to hnoio another explanation to be the true one. 

On the question of the legitimacy of our natural facul- 
ties, Heraclitus reasons thus. We are endowed with two 
means of attaining truth — sense and reason. The latter is 
the sole criterion of truth. The testimony of sense is not 
worthy of credence. ^'The eyes and ears of those having 
uninformed or imperfect souls are evil witnesses to men" 
2 



11 



26 THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 

(Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 126), which may mean simply 
that a man must know something in order to be a good 
observer and hearer, or it may mean to disparage the senses 
generally as not reliable, inasmuch as men generally have 
barbarous souls. 

Eeason, then, is the criterion of truth. What reason ? 
not that of the individual, but the universal and divine 
reason, i. e., the air or medium that surrounds us, which, 
drawn into us by inspiration, we become intelligent. This 
takes place at least during our waking hours. But in sleep 
we lose what we have acquired ; the soul separates itself from 
that community of being which it has with the surrounding 
element, and we become irrational, because the senses are 
obstructed and the commerce is broken off between our 
souls and the universal soul. When we wake, the senses, the 
windows of the soul, open, and permit the soul to commune 
with the universal soul. Then we become rational again; just 
as coals kindle or go out at the approach or removal of fire. 
That which is the criterion of truth, then, is the universal 
reason,* or that which seems true to the judgment of all, but 
the conceptions of the individual reason are not to be relied 
on. The universality of a belief is the criterion of truth, a 
doctrine revived two thousand years afterward in opposition 
to the Cartesian doctrine in France. This idea of the senses 
as not reliable, is one which we shall afterward find carried 
out further in the Eleatic school, and made a very promi- 
nent doctrine, in fact, in subsequent Grecian philosophy. 
Heraclitus seems not to have conceived of Deity as an intel- 
ligent being distinct from nature. He was a pantheist. 
Hegel says there is not a position assumed by Heraclitus 
which he (Hegel) has not laid down in his logic. The 
following maxims are ascribed to him. It is necessary to 
be more on our guard against pride, than against a con- 
flagration (Diog. L. ix. 2). To be wise is a great virtue, 

* As autliority for this whole statement, see Sext. Emp. adv. Math, 
vii. 129, 130, 133. Also Mallet, Man. Phil. p. 150. 



|i i|>l>i>|>i>l>rn I I I I I I I I 1 I 



THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 



27 



and wisdom consists in conforming our words and actions 
to truth. The best thing for men is not to realize all their 
wishes. There await us at death such things as we neither 
hope nor expect. A people ought to battle for their laws 
as for their walls (Diog. L. ix. 2). His ideas of moist and 
dry seem to have been rather peculiar. A dry climate and 
soil he thinks most favorable for wisdom, for there the soul 
is driest and lest. The soul, with him, is only a modifica- 
tion of air or fire, and so, of course, the drier is the purer 
and brighter. He accounts for the incapacity of the drunk- 
ard by his hsixing ?i moist soul ! (Stob. Serm. t. 120.) (See 
some fine obseryations on H. in Maurice, Encycl. Metrop. 
Yol. ii. pp. 571-572). 



§ 5. — Diogenes of Apollonia. 

Bom at Apollonia in Crete ; time uncertain. Accord- 
ing to Diog. Laertius, he was contemporary with Anaxagoras, 
and disciple of Anaximenes. Eitter regards him as suc- 
cessor of the latter. Eenou^der and Mallet make him the 
successor of Heraclitus, which seems on the whole most 
probable. Tennemann fixes his date at the 77th Olympiad, 
about 472 B. c, which is probably not far from the truth. 

He wrote seyeral works, some on natural science, which 
continued till 600 of the Christian era. He came to Athens, 
which then began to be the metropolis of G-reece in letters 
and science, as in power. Here, however, he was subject 
to envy and persecution, and his life even in danger. 

Diogenes, the last of Ionian dynamists or naturalists ; 
of those who saw in nature a being unique, material, living. 
Like the other lonians, he takes a simple element as the 
principle of all things. The reason he assigns for so doing- 
is the necessity of recognizing among things a series of 
mutual and reciprocal actions and reactions, which could 
not be, unless all proceeded fi'om one common principle. 
So cited by Simplicius and Aristotle. 

What, then, is his first principle ? Like Anaximenes, 



28 THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 

he takes aivy meaning by it, not tlie simple atmosphere, 
but something intermediate between air and fire, something 
more refined than the grosser physical element, more 
ethereal and subtle, like the fire of Heraclitus, using the 
term symbolically, perhaps, rather than literally. Herein, 
as Eitter thinks, is seen the progress of philosophy from 
Thales onward, in that the whole school, while seeking the 
first principle in some one element, make that eleme^it less 
and less literal. 

How was he led to take air as the first principle ? By 
analogy. Soul is air or breath ; so both Anaximenes and 
Diogenes. Life consists in the soul ; hence they conclude 
that air is the uniyersal life. Diogenes makes it the soul 
of the world, which, like the human soul, has consciousness 
and thought. So Simplicius (Phys. i. 33) and Cicero (de 
I^^at. Deorum i. 12) represent him. No animal can live 
without air, hence he supposes air to be the soul. Even 
the blood, the source of vitality, contains air. Simplicius 
(Phys. i. 32) thus cites : " Man and the other animals who 
breathe, live on air, and the air constitutes their soul 
and their tlwuglit, and if respiration ceases life and thought 
cease at the same time." Aristotle (de Hist. Anim.) thus: 
"Diogenes established that thought is produced by the 
circulation of air, with the blood, through the body along 
the veins." Plutarch also the same (dePlac. 4, 5). This 
theory is remarkable. It accounts for the formation of 
thought in a singular way, and also presupposes the circu- 
lation of the blood, a discovery of two thousand years 
later date. According to Plutarch and Aristotle, he 
makes the heart, by virtue of circulation of air, the seat 
and centre at once of life and thought. But Eitter dis- 
putes it. 

Simplicus (Phys. i. 33) makes him confer on the air 
the attributes of divinity, greatness, power, knowledge, 
eternity, etc. By virtue of intelligence, this supreme 
principle is regarded ly him as author of the order andhar 



THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 29 

mony in the universe, " Without intelligence/' says he, 
" it is impossible all things should be distributed as they are, 
each having its bound and law, as summer, winter, night, 
day, rain, wind, etc." (Phys. i. 32). Hence he infers the 
origin of things from an intelligent being, vorjacv exov, a sotd 
wliicJi vivifies all and hnows all. " And to me it seems 
that the intelligent principle is that which men call air ; it 
is it that regidates and governs all, pervades and penetrates 
all, and there is nothing which partakes not of its essence " 
(Phys. i. 33). In this last we have the element of pan- 
theism. Taking the whole together, however, we have in 
it a grand advance, in philosophy, upon anything that we 
have yet found. Erom the doctrine of the previous phi- 
losophers, as Anaximenes and others, that the first principle 
was a mere force — vitality, physical development— to this 
doctrine of intelligence as the chief characteristic of that 
principle, the advance is striking. From mere action of 
blind fatality and eternal necessary movement, giving rise 
to the production of the universe; from that, to this idea of 
wisdom and intelligence ordering all these movements and 
appointing the seasons and their bounds, the difference, 
the progress is great. 

Yet even here we have not as yet the idea of a distinct 
spiritual existence, such as we designate by the title of 
Deity, but rather, only a material being endowed with 
intelligence — a corporeal principle uniting with itself an 
intelligent element. So also thinks Mallet, see 175. The 
distinction between the mind and body, as separate essences, 
does not occur to him. His deity, or first cause, is merely 
corporeal or physical nature, endowed with the higher 
properties of intelligence, etc. He originates the idea, 
hitherto unknown to philosophy, of an efficient cause, but 
gets not so far as to perceive that it must be itself imma- 
terial. This was the next and the next higher step in 
progress of the human mind, unaided by revelation, seek- 
ing after G-od. To make this final discovery was reserved 



3b THEIOKIANSCHOOL. 

for anotlier studious and tliouglitful man.' But it is 
interesting to pause even here, and see liow, by careful 
steps and slow, little by little, tlie mind by light of nature 
has wrought out its painful way thus far toward the knowl- 
edge of the true God. 

Combining the two elements of spirituality and materi- 
ality in his first principle, Diogenes makes it, as material, 
originate the worlds in much the same way as Anaximenes 
had done; excej)ting always, that the various transforma- 
tions take place, not by fixed and fated laws of movement 
as with him, but by intelligent and powerful will, assuming 
the double function of cause material and cause efl&cient. 

Condensation of air produces water; further conden- 
sation, earth; rarefaction of air gives fire, etc. This pro- 
cess goes on continually, all things returning again to air 
whence they proceeded; nothing remaining in statu quo ; 
but the primordial whole itself infinite and unchanged, not- 
withstanding the finite nature of the modifications. 

The place of the different elements is determined by 
their relative density, water and earth taking the lower, 
air and fire the higher spheres. From these lighter and 
upper elements result the sun and stars. 

From the different qualities of the air, which is not always 
and in all forms the same, but diverse, result the differ- 
ences of species and individuals. The degree of warmth 
and dryness and rarity varies in the souls of different 
animals and in those of men, and hence a difference among 
them in activity, habits, intelligence, and bodily form, 
(Simplicius, Phys. lib. i. fol. 33). 

The earth was formed by condensation from the warm 
surrounding sphere. This condensation produced motion, 
•and so earth, as heaviest, was fixed in the centre. The 
sun, acting on the primitive moisture, formed the sea. 
This is gradually drying up and will finally disappear. 
Living creatures were formed out of the earth, before its 
oblique declination. 



THE lONIAK SCHOOL. 



31 



§ 6. — Anaxagoeas. 

Birth-place, Ionia, as with so many other ancient phi- 
losophers ; town or city, Olazomenae ; time, Olymp. 70, or 
600 B. c. So Apollodorus and Diogenes Laertins, followed 
by Brucker, Eitter, and Tennemann. Death, 428 B. c, at 
72. The most notable in many respects of the Ionian 
school ; the most perfect development of it. A life, a 
system, every way worthy of study, and perhaps you will 
say, with me, of admiration. 

Of illustrious family, like Heraclitus, and like him 
he renounced riches and greatness for philosophy. Affairs 
public and private, says Mallet, rank, fortune, family, he 
abandoned all for science, and some one asking him one 
day if there was no longer for him any such thing as coun- 
try, he replied, pointing at the same time to heaven, ^' My 
country is, on the contrary, the object of all my thoughts." 

His youth was spent at Olazomenae, and the other Ionian 
cities. Uncertain now who were his teachers, and what his 
travels, which were extensive. Diogenes Laertius makes him 
the pupil of Anaximenes, yet by oversight fixes the death of 
the latter at 538, or thirty-eight years before the hirth 
of the former. Brucker not much better, for according to 
his dates Anaximenes must have been over eighty when 
Anaxagoras became his pupil. Yet, if not the pupil, he 
doubtless received the current philosophy of Anaximenes, 
Anaximander, Thales, etc. He finally emigrated to Athens, 
at about forty or forty-five. Athens was about to become the 
literary metropolis of Greece. Here he had, as tradition 
relates, pupils of distinction, as Pericles, with whom he 
was ijitimate, Euripides, Archelaus, Democritus, and even 
Socrates. Such is the testimony of Diogenes Laertius and 
of Suidas, as to Euripides and Socrates. Oicero bears 
the same testimony as to Euripides, and both Diogenes and 
Oicero afiirm the same of Pericles. 

Anaxagoras is the first Athenian philosopher of note, 



32 THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 

although of Ionian origin, as were in fact the founders of 
all the great schools of the first age of Greek philosophy. 
From Miletus alone went forth Thales, Anaximander, 
Anaximenes, and Archelaus ; from Ephesus, Heraclitus ; 
from Clazomense, Anaxagoras. Ionia gave birth also to 
Xenophanes, founder of the Eleatic school, and Pythagoras 
of the Italian. Thus does this little province of Asia Minor 
give Italy her first two philosophers, Xenophanes and 
Pythagoras, and also Athens her first. 

Anaxagoras passes his old age in poverty and want, and 
at the decline of the fortunes of Pericles, his friend and 
patron, suffers persecution. Accused of impiety toward the 
gods for saying that the sun is a burning stone, or mass of 
incandescent matter, according to one account he was con- 
condemned to death. Sufficiently cool his reply on receiv- 
ing that sentence : that " nature had long ago pronounced 
against him the same sentence." According to the more 
probable statement, Pericles appears in his behalf, defends 
him boldly before the judges, and procures his libera- 
tion; but Anaxagoras goes into exile immediately, some 
say voluntarily, out of chagxin. Exile he was, however, at 
Lampsacus in Asia Minor, where he ended his days; Suidas 
says he put an end to his own life. Some one regi-etting 
that he should die afar from his native land, he replied, 
"the way to Hades is much the same from every place." 
Citizens of Lampsacus gave him funeral honors, and in- 
scribed on his tomb, " Here lies Anaxagoras, who of all 
men penetrated farthest into the celestial world." 

Was Anaxagoras, then, chiefly an astronomer? His epi- 
taph might seem to convey that idea, but it was not so. 
It is related also by Diogenes Laertius and Aristotle, that 
when one asked him to what end he was born, he replied, 
**to this end, to contemplate the heaven, the sun, and the 
moon." This certainly indicates a leading propensity of 
his mind. Yet astronomy was but the preface and prelude 
to the grand oratorio. He studied nature in her external 



THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 33 

arrangements, only as the handmaid to a loftier and gi-ander 
philosophy. The first philosophers, as we have seen, were 
all naturalists, and generally astronomers; but it was cos- 
mogony rather than astronomy, the science of the grand 
whole — the ground and origin and genesis of the great uni- 
verse ; whence it proceeded ; how it came to be ; that they 
had chiefly in view in all these inquiries. 

Anaxagoras belongs to the class of philosophers whom 
we denote mechanists, regarding the universe not as the 
development of a unique element, but the result of the 
combination of many elements. 

The primitive state of the universe was chaos, according 
to Anaxagoras; within the bosom of which chaos are con- 
tained an infinite number of material elements, of extreme 
tenuity, infinitely small and so imperceptible to sense. (In 
this last he holds a doctrine kindred to that of the atomists, 
Epicurus and Democritus, who give the name of atoms to 
these elements which he calls rd auiKphv aTveiKpov (the small in- 
finite). These little fellows are all in aheap and confusion. 
Air and ether, however — by which last he means probably, 
as Aristotle and Plutarch suppose, what Heraclitus calls fire 
— envelope the whole, and are distinguished from the con- 
fused mass as elements special and determined. (Here his 
theory unites with that of Heraclitus and Anaximenes. ) 

In this jumble or chaos, everything is in all, i. e., every 
part is like the whole, and contains a portion of the whole, 
and so to these infinite littles he gives the singular name 
homcBomerise, al duotofiepiac denoting that of which the part is 
like the icliole (Plato. Phsedo.c. 17 ; Arist. Phys. i. 4 ; Arist. 
Met. i, 3, 7, iv. 4 ; de Gen. An. i. 18 ; Sext. Emp. Hy[x 
Pyrr. iii. 32 ; Adv. Math. ix. 368 ; Diog. Laert. ii. 8 ; Cic. 
Acad, ii, 37). These are the elementary seeds of things. 
The whole mass of them a unity, yet each by itself a repro- 
duction of the whole on a small scale. This is the point of 
departure. How comes the ivorld out of this ? By move- 
ment, and this movement is the work of mind. Repose is 
2* 



34 THE lOiTIAI^ SCHOOL. 

the primitive state ; repose in confusion, in chaos ; by 
movement, things thus jumbled together in confusion sep- 
arate themselves and become order; and this movement is 
not any principle inherent in matter itself, but the work of 
an wimaterial existence — of mind (Plato, Pliaedo, 46, 
47 ; Arist. Phys. i. 4. viii. 1 ; Met. i. 3, 4 ; Sext. Emp. 
adv. Math. ix. 6, 7 ; Diog. L. Proaem. 4, ii. 6 ; Oic. de. Nat. 
Deor. i. 1). Duality is thus established. Matter and mi7id : 
a great pomt gained in pliilosopliy. 

This movement is circular. By means of it the par- 
ticles that are homogeneous, the cold, the wet, the dark, 
unite and form the earth, stones, etc.; while the light, 
warm, dry, uniting, ascend to the upper regions. Cold 
converts the clouds to water, water to earth, earth to 
stones, etc. Dissolution succeeds to aggregation in the 
same way — one follows the other continually. Nothing is 
born, nothing perishes; it is aggregation or dissolution; the 
reunion and separation of parts — nothing else. The things 
themselves are eternal. 

The reciprocal action of fire, water, and earth, produces 
animals, which afterward propagate themselves. The fire, 
or ether, is highest, then water and air, then, lowest of all, 
the earth. Water being thus intermediary between earth 
and air and fire, is in constant state of motion. The sea, 
e. g., continually changing its locality, retreating from some 
places and encroaching on others — sea and land changing 
places — (just as geology teaches at the present day). The 
sea would one day, if the world stood long enough, cover 
the mountains of Lampsacus. 

In meteorology also we find Anaxagoras anticipating the 
results of modern science; that winds are produced by the 
sun's rays acting on the air, that thunder is caused by the 
shock of the clouds, etc. He predicted the fall of a certain 
meteoric stone. Eegarded the sun itself and the stars as 
incandescent stones ; and the moon, habitable, as the earth, 
with hills and valleys. Even conceived the existence of 



THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 35 

intelligent beings on other planets. '^ There are in other 
worlds than ours, men who have, as we, their cities, their 
habitations, their labors ; for them as for us, there is a sun, 
a moon, stars ; for them likewise the ground produces fruits 
of all kinds, which they gather and use as they need." 
Shooting stars he thinks are scintillations flying through 
the air; the milky way, the reflection of the sun's rays from 
stars not themselves luminous. 

As to the great problem of the veracity of our faculties, 
he is more Eleatic than Ionian ; decides that the testimony 
of sense cannot in any way conduct to certitude, and fixes 
on reason as the criterion of truth (Arist. Met. iv. 5, 7 ; 
Sext. Emp. Hyp. Pyrr. i. 33 ; Adv. Math. vii. 9'0, 91 ; Cic. 
Acad. i. 12 ; Tusc. Quest, iv. 23, 31). We see in this a 
tendency to the idealism of Zeno, and of Berkeley, Hume, 
and others among the moderns. That such was his view, 
is sustained by passages cited by Aristotle, Simplicius, 
Cicero, and others, about the snow appearing white, while in 
reality it is composed of water which is black. Lewes, 
however, thinks that he did not mean to deny that the 
senses are subjectively true — that they give correct reports 
of their impressions, that is, of phenomena — ^but only that 
they are not objectively to be relied upon. They perceive 
plienomena, but not noumena. If so, however, he is still 
not far from modern idealism; for this which is just now 
stated was really the position of Hume and Berkeley, and 
must be that of every consistent idealist. No one can 
deny the subjective truth of the senses ; that were to deny 
consciousness. 

What, finally, was his idea of God ? The earlier phi- 
losophers had admitted only material causes. Anaxagoras, 
as Diogenes had also done, added to this an efficient cause. 
So say Aristotle, Simplicius, Diogenes Laertius, Proclus, 
and Cicero. He makes mind, in distinction from matter, 
an object of thought — immense, omnipresent mind. In this 
respect — and it is a grand step forward — his theory is wholly 






36 THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 

and totally distinct from, and in advance of the pantheism 
of many of the earlier philosophers and the atheism of 
others. Yet even with him the world and God are so related 
to each other, that while there would be no world without 
God, so also no God without the world. His idea of mind, 
— so Ritter — was not that of an entity existing apart from 
and mdependent of matter, pure spirit, but that of mind 
as exhibited in finite phenomena of animate material 
objects. This world-soul lives in every living thing. 
Individual souls di:ffer in degree, not in nature, from this 
(So Arist. de Anima. i. 2. iii. 5). It is dependent on the 
bodily organization, and is set in motion by external 
impressions. It accompanies all bodily organization. 
Plants have mind, have pain, desire, pleasure, etc., even 
knowledge also. Bitter, accordingly, makes his discovery 
of mind to be much less of an advance on the previous 
systems, that of Heraclitus, e. g., than I have represented 
it, and than it is generally regarded. Aristotle unjustly 
charges him with introducing other causes beside mind to 
account for things. But mind originates the first motion, 
and all other effects are results of that motion, mind is the 
first and efficient cause, not of matter, for matter and the 
ndus or mind are coeternal, but of order and arrange- 
ment. The essence of mind is simple, pure, without mix- 
ture, containing in itself the knowledge and principle of 
the movement of all things, still not strictly creator, but 
only ordainer or luilder, arranger of the world. It is not 
the moral providence of Plato, but only the metaphysical 
one, the nous pure, that puts things in motion and makes 
the laws of nature ; hence Plato dissatisfied with him. Yet 
in him is the germ of what Plato fully developed, for 
Aristotle makes him say that the nous is the source of the 
leautiful and the good. Here at least is the presentiment 
of the grand discovery of Plato (See Mallet, Hist. Ion. 
Phil. p. 244; also 237, 8). 



If 



THE ITALIAN SCHOOL. 37 



CHAPTER II 

THE ITALIAK SCHOOL. 
Pythagokas. 

This school, whose general characteristics haye been 
already giyen (see introductory outline), was contemporary 
in part with the former. The later Ionian philosophers 
were subsequent to Pythagoras. To have introduced this 
school, however, at an earlier moment, and precisely in its 
chronological place, would have violated that unity which 
we wished to give to the Ionian philosophy, as a distinct 
system. Nor can the precise chronology of this school be 
determined. On no point are authorities more divided. 
The period variously assigned for the birth and epoch of 
Pythagoras ranges between the limits of the 43d and 64th 
Oljonpiads, a range of eighty-four years — somewhere within 
which period he was born. With Eitter and Tissot, I am 
inclined to place it in the 49th, or about 584 b. c. So 
Ueberweg 582. (But Schwegler and Butler prefer 548.) 
It is sufficient to say that while the Ionian school was 
flourishing and in its full vigor and prime in the G-recian 
colonies of Asia Minor, there arose in one of those islands 
of the ^gean so celebrated in history, a philosopher who 
entertained the bold and romantic project of founding, not 
a new system of philosophy merely, but a state based upon 
philosophical principles — a community of philosophers. 
This man was Pythagoras of Samos, who after a time fixed 
his residence in Orotona, in Lower Italy, an Achaean col- 
ony. Of this man's personal history not much authentic 
information can be gleaned. Tradition has reported much 
that is marvellous of his birth and history. ^^ A fabulous 
wonder-many'^ as Fries expresses it. His birth supcrnatu- 



38 THE ITALIAN SCHOOL. 

ral, tlie son of Apollo, a divine glory wreathed liis brow. 
As a mark of liis divine origin lie bore a golden tliigh ; was 
seen at different places at the same time; wild beasts 
obeyed his call. He received the gift of recollection of 
his previous existence. He heard, what to our dull 
ears is inaudible, the harmony of the spheres. When he 
gave himself to meditation he discovered not only the 
nature of all beings, but at a glance of the eye took in ten 
or twenty ages of human history. " Shall we wonder," 
says Lewes, " that he was venerated as a god ? He who 
could so transcend all earthly struggles, and the great am- 
bitions of the greatest men, as to live only for the sake of 
wisdom, was he not of a higher stamp than ordinary mor- 
tals ? Well might later historians picture him as clothed 
in robes of white, his head crowned with gold, his aspect 
grave, magisterial, and calm ; above the manifestation of 
any human joy, of any human sorrow; enwrapt in contem- 
plation of the deeper mysteries of existence ; listening to 
music, and the hymns of Homer, Hesiod, and Thales; or 
listening to the harmony of the spheres. He was the first 
of mystics. And to a lively, talkative, quibbling, active, 
versatile people hke the Greeks, what a grand phenome- 
non must this solemn, earnest, silent, meditative man have 
appeared." 

There is great difficulty in ascertaining what the doc- 
trines of this school were. He taught in secret, and each 
disciple carried out and modified the views of the teacher 
to suit his own turn of mind ; so that his disciples differ 
among themselves. Certain it is, however, that he founded 
an order, so to speak, somewhat as Loyola in after times 
founded the order of Jesuits ; the end of which association 
was at once scientific and moral, political and religious. 
The three hundred members of this order were of the noblest 
families in Crotona, the aristocratic families, and they were 
trained to self-knowledge, so that they should be fit to com- 
mand the world. It was only after examination and proba- 



THE ITALIAN SCHOOL. 39 

tion that they were admitted to the society, and only by 
slow degrees and after a long noyitiate, were they admitted 
to its higher honors. This novitiate of several years was 
passed in silence, hearing the instructions of others, bnt not 
themselves allowed to speak. Eor this class of disciples 
Pythagoras liad one course of teaching, and for the initiated 
another, which latter was never fully divulged. Pythag- 
oras diifered from the Grecian spirit of the age in attach- 
ing importance to woman. His wife was a philosopher, 
and fifteen female disciples are numbered among his 
more distinguished pupils. How they managed to get 
through the many novitiate years of silence is still a mys- 
tery. The influence of Pythagoras and his fraternity in 
Crotona soon became unbounded ; extended by branch 
societies to other Italian cities ; supplanted existing polit- 
cal institutions ; took the place of senates ; excited suspi- 
cion and alarm by its rapid gTowth, its ambitious designs, 
its secrecy and mysticism — (perhaps the opposition of those, 
who found the rule of the order too severe for them, helped 
on the matter, as Fries suggests) — awakened first the fears, 
then the resentment of the people ; involved a large por- 
tion of Italy in contest and convulsion, and wa§ finally by 
a sort of general uprising broken up and scattered. Many 
of its adherents perished. Whether Pythagoras himself was 
a victim to the popular rage, or died a fugitive, is now uncer- 
tain. Some question even, whether the breaking up oc- 
curred before his death. So Fries. His fraternity, how- 
ever, did not survive him. His philosophical system and 
sect may have continued longer, but his school died with 
himself, and his system and secret perished with his follow- 
ers and immediate disciples. Hence it is that so little is 
known of his philosophy. The paucity of reliable writings, 
and the contradictory statements of his disciples, add to the 
difiiculty. 

This much is known, however, of his philosophical 
system. A proficient in inatliematics and in music, he is 



40 THE ITALIAN SCHOOL. 

struck with the beauty and simplicity of the general prin- 
ciples or primary laws of those sciences ; meditates much 
on those two grand elements, number and time ; perceives 
that everything in the universe is capable of being measured 
by these two elements, number and time ; concludes that 
they must therefore be the first principles of things 
(Aristotle, Met. i. 5, xiv. 3 ; Cicero Acad. ii. 37 ; Sext. 
Emp. adv. Math. iv. 2), and carrying over in this way 
these prime elements into the sphere of philosophy, founds 
on this basis a system at once novel, beautiful, mystic, and 
ideal. Number is the prime element of all, the first prin- 
ciple of things. The essence of number is the even-odd 
as he calls it; that is the monad primitive and absolute, 
the absolute unity, containing in itself all other numbers 
and the elements of all things. This absolute unity is 
creator of itself, binds together the eternal duration of 
things, is deity; for deity provides for all, embraces all, 
and is one. Deity, then, is number. The grand problem of 
the universe and its supreme builder and disposer — the 
problem of things and of God himself is solved. To state 
the system a little more in detail, its essential process of 
thought is this : Among the phenomena of nature there is 
one and only one character which puts order and harmony 
among things, and determines their relations ; which im- 
parts to all existence the faculty of being intelligible and 
definite, and, in fine, to our intelligence itself the only 
means it has of knowing anything. This character is 
nwjiber. Owing to this, the world becomes orderly, harmo- 
nious, perfect; can call itself Kosmos — order, beauty — 
(which word he first applies to designate the world). 
What the nature is of this Avonderful element, number, he 
cannot explain ; but he can sing its praise, can incite to its 
study, as developed in geometry, astronomy, music ; can 
, trace its relations, and the ways in which it reveals itself. 

(\. This number is a creator, separate from matter; matter 

!| [ is passive — not living, as the lonians have it. Here a dual- 

H 



THE ITALIAN SCHOOL. 41 

ity : number on the one hand ; matter subject to its won- 
derful operations on the other hand. Number produces, 
not the finite and limited only, but the infinite and unde- 
termined. What in itself is not knowable brings into 
existence the unlimited being — the infinite one. The 
parent, the root, the germ of number — ^this mighty pro- 
ducer — is unity ; and unity and duality, the one and the 
many, are the elements of all things; the one, the active 
or limiting; the other, the passive or limited principle 
(Sextus Emp. adv. Math. x. 261-2, 277; Diog. Laert. 
viii. 25 ; Plutarch de Plac. Phil. i. 3, 7). By means of 
this unity in multiplicity all things in the world harmonize 
completely, and there results the harmony of the spheres, 
analogous to earthly music, while the whole moves in 
agreeable proportion around a common central point, the 
central fire (Arist. de Coelo ii. 9, 13 ; Sext. Emp. adv. 
Math. iv. 6, x. 283 ; Cicero de Nat. Deor. iii. 11 ; Arist. 
Met. i. 5). 

Beside this subjective view of the universe, he seems 
also to have taken an objective view, thus : What unity is to 
intelligence, stcch is light to the material world, imparts 
life, illuminates, warms, fecundates, becomes the creator 
of the physical universe. Under the "name of ether, it is 
the vital element of nature; the symbol, nay more, essence 
of Deity. His duality runs thus then : light, harmony, 
unity, on the one hand ; darkness, disorder, plurality, on 
the other. 

His idea of Deity seems to have been that of the inva- 
riable being that inhabits or dwells in the supreme unity, 
regarded as manifest in the universe ; the spirit pervading 
it; the all-seeing light ; the fire traversing creation and 
kindling up intelligences, minds, everywhere; represented 
by the sun or great central fire, the most perfect object in 
nature (so Tennemann and Butler), soul of the universe, 
from whom all souls proceed. Others, however, as Lewes, 
deny this view, and suppose that Pythagoras does not con- 



42 THE ITALIAN SCHOOL. 

ceive of mind otherwise than as a material phenomenon, 
not as an infinite intelligence, merely a mathematical ab- 
straction. But this does not well accord with the other 
parts of his system.* 

The following table presents in contrast the various 
categories or primitiye elements, to one or other of which all 
things in nature may be reduced. The limited and unlim- 
ited ; the equal and unequal ; the one and the many ; the 
right and the left ; male and female ; that which rests and 
that which moves ; the straight line, and the curve ; light 
and dark ; good and evil ; the square, and the quadrila- 
teral, not square ; in all a decade ; the essence of number. 
The fourth and the seventh also play a conspicuous part in 
tho formation of things. 

This general method of philosophy they apply to nature 
not only, but to the soul, to Deity, to morals, to every- 
thing. Number liQ^dXi'hQ foundation of the whole. Thus 
soul (which is itself an emanation from and allied to the 
great central fire or light — he calls it a self -moving number — 
virtue is the harmony of the soul, its unison) is the harmony 
of body ; justice is a number porportionately equal, etc. 
The scientific insight of Pythagoras, not much above that 
of his age, says Fries, and Aristotle suggests the same. 

The world consists of ten great bodies or spheres, which 
revolve harmoniously around a common centre, the source 
to all of life and warmth. The sun is that centre, immov- 
able, and worlds circle around it. So the disciples of Py- 
thagoras taught, and such was probably the doctrine of 
Pythagoras himself. So Ueberweg. Pythagoras taught the 

* For brilliant sketch of life and history of Pythagoras, see 
Lewes, vol. i. p. 15-20. 

For the manner in which he came to regard number as the prin- 
ciple of all things, and to ground his system on that, see Butler, vol. 
i. p. 316-319, or series 1, lecture 6. 

On the question whether P. makes numbers to be things or only 
symhols of things, see Lewes, i. 30. 



THE ITALIAN SCHOOL. 43 

existence of genii, and their apparition. Souls are preex- 
istent to the bodies which they inhabit, and survive those 
bodies, pass into other forms and dwell in other bodies by 
the law of animal generation. This doctrine seems to have 
been founded in the idea of retribution, justice after death. 
Life is a task, which we fulfil according to destiny. The 
soul is a monad self -moved. In its perfect and proper state 
it is unity, but it loses perfection, and becomes imperfect, 
by any movement or change. Imperfection he defines as 
departure from unity. ISTow in man the soul is not abso- 
lute unity, not therefore in absolute perfection. It has 
three elements, reason, intelligence, and desire (or sensibility 
as we should say), the two last in common with the brutes, 
the first characteristic of himself. The understanding has 
its seat in the brain ; the sensibilities and passions in the 
heart. Each of these elements may become predominant, 
and as it does the man becomes eminently rational, or able, 
or sensual. Hence the doctrine of transmigration. As a 
modern writer has elegantly expressed it, "This soul, 
which can look before and after, can shrink and shrivel 
itself into an incapacity of contemplating aught but the 
present moment; of what depths of degeneracy it is capable ! 
What a beast it may become ! And if something lower 
than itself, why not something higher ? And if something 
higher and lower, may there not be a law accurately deter- 
mining its elevation and descent ? Each soul has its pecu- 
liar evil tastes bringing it to the likeness of different crea- 
tures beneath itself ; why may it not be under the necessity, 
of abiding in the condition of that thing to which it had 
adapted and reduced itself ? " 

The rules of life and morals in the Pythagorean system 
are accordingly strict and ascetic ; — temperance, modera- 
tion, fidelity, love, friendship, are insisted on. The morality 
of the system is severe and religious ; daily self-examination 
is prescribed as a duty, the soul must be cultivated to all 
things excellent and true. Hence the importance of music 



44 ELEATICSCHOOL. 

and gymnastics in the training of cliildren especially, who 
must by great care be educated to virtue. Suicide, how- 
ever, is allowable. He compares this life to the Olympic 
games, where some seek honor and the crowns ; others go 
for barter and gain ; others, more noble, go to enjoy the 
spectacle and observe what passes. So we quit our native 
abode, the skies, come into the world, some seeking honor, 
some wealth, some power, etc. ; a few study nature. These 
he calls philosophers, the noblest sort, the highest occupa- 
tion of man. 



CHAPTER IIL 

ELEATIC SCHOOL. 

This school derives its name from Elea, a Greek colony of 
Lower Italy, the residence, in his later years, of Xenophanes, 
the founder of the school. It comprises among its dis- 
tinguished members, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, and 
Empedocles. It covers a period of time from 100 to 150 
years in extent, or from about the beginning or middle of 
the 6th to about the middle of the 5th century B.C. — 550 
or 600 to 450. It was, therefore, subsequent to the Ionian 
and, in part at least, to the Pythagorean school, and in some 
way may be regarded as the legitimate result and product of 
the latter. Its chief characteristic as a school was its purely 
rational and supra-sensible character — transcendental, as we 
should now term it — its utter disregard of the sensible, and 
attention to the supra-sensible. 

Its origin — like that of all the preceding schools — Ionian. 

§ 1. — Xenophajstes. 

The 6th century b. c. was to Greece, and especially to 
her colonies, the era of liberty and thought, of commercial 
enterprise and activity, of science and of increasing wealth. 



ELEATICSCHOOL. 45 

beyond any that had preceded it. It was at this period 
that there arose in Ionia, fertile in great minds, a mind 
at once original and penetrating, anim.ated with the genius 
of both the Ionian and the Pythagorean schools, yet coin- 
ciding with neither and opposed to both, destined to 
cast new light upon the problems of an intricate science, 
and to become the founder of a new school of philosophical 
thought, the first school indeed of pure metaphysics in 
Greece. Xenophanes was born at Colophon in Ionia. He 
ilourished, according to Eitter, about the 60th Olympiad, 
or 540 B. c; born 569 B. c, according to Ueberweg; but 
according to Cousin, he was born much earlier than that, 
— ^in the 40th Olympiad, or 620 B. c. As he lived to an 
advanced age, he may perhaps have been somewhat in years 
before he became known widely as a philosopher ; so that 
we suppose him, with Eitter, to have flourished at 540 or 
650, and yet, with Cousin, to have been born at or near the 
beginning of that century. 

He was contemporary with Anaximander and Pythagoras. 
Exiled from his country, he seems to have wandered for a 
time in Sicily, and subsequently, at the age of eighty, to have 
settled in Elea, in Lower Italy, a colony of Phocseans. This 
was an enterprising and active commercial city, not ill-fitted 
to become the centre of a school of science. Xenophanes 
was a poet. From his twenty-fifth to his ninety-second 
year he seems to have cultivated that peculiar species of 
poetical composition for which his native city was famous, 
the elegiac and rhapsodical. His philosophic thoughts are 
clothed in vers.e. He wrote epics, narrative and didactic. 
Opposed to the anthropomorphic representations of the 
earlier poets, especially Hesiod and Homer, he indulges in 
frequent and bitter denunciation of all such modes of ex- 
pression. Plato, it may be remarked, afterward sympa- 
thized with him in this respect. A poor man, wandering 
for years from place to place, and supporting himself by 
the recital of his poems, he was nevertheless wealthy in his 



;i; ,; 





46 ELEATICSCnOOL. 

superior mental resources. He longed with insatiable 
desire to discover truth; as Tennyson has expressed it, 

" Yearning in desire 
To follow knowledge like a sinking star 
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought." 

How finely expressive of this unsatisfied desire are these 
lines, which another Grecian poet, Timon the sinograph, 
puts into the mouth of Xenophanes. 

" Oh, that mine was the deep mind, prudent and looking to both sides ; 

Long, alas, have I strayed, on the road of error beguiled. 

And am now hoary of years, yet exposed to doubt and distraction 

Of all kinds ; for wherever I turn to consider, 

I am lost in the one and all." 

Xenophanes was, through a long and active life, a dili- 
gent inquirer after truth, and terminated that life, those 
long, anxious years, without having solved the great problem. 
Not to him was it given. He only learned how little he knew. 

From this one stand-point, this nineteenth century 
since the advent of Him whom kings and prophets waited 
for but died without the sight, surrounded as we are by 
all the discoveries of science and all the light of revelation, 
it is easy to look back upon the path of such a mind strug- 
gling on unaided either by science or revelation; gro23ing 
its way slowly and painfully in its fruitless search after 
truth, and congratulate ourselves that we are wiser and 
more fortunate; but for one I cannot, without a feeling of 
admiration and even of gratitude, regard the toilsome pro- ' 
gress and earnest endeavors of such a mind — of those ancient 
thinkers, who broke out the path for all coming time, and 
by their unrewarded toil earned for us the riches of a 
better inheritance. How true is it — what Xenophanes him- 
self has said — 

" Not from the first was all revealed by the gods unto mankind ; 
Only in time and by long search can man find out the better:" 

The theology of Xenophanes. This, the principal thing 
in his philosophy. It was the doctrine of Xenophanes 



ELEATIC SCHOOL. 47 

that men can know nothing with certainty respecting the 
gods. The anthropomorphic views of the Greeks he is 
never weary of ridiculing. If cattle could paint, horses 
would describe the gods as so many horses, and oxen as so 
many oxen. 

" Men foolishly think that gods are bom like as men are, 

And have, too, a dress like their own and their voice and their figure; 

But if oxen and lions had hands, like ours, and fingers, 

Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen, 

Paint and fashion their god- forms, and give to them bodies 

Of like shape to their own, as they themselves, too, are fashioned." 

Thus it is, he says, that the Ethiopians represent their 
deities as having flat noses and black faces, while the 
Thracians picture theirs with blue eyes and ruddy com- 
plexions. 

What view, then, will Xenophanes take of the Deity ? 
Surrounded with mysteries, and oppressed with doubts, 
how wiU he solve the great problem of existence ? The 
physiological method of the lonians, the mathematical theory 
of the Italian school, seemed to him neither of them to have 
solved the great problem. How came this great universe to 
be where and what it is? who and what is that invisible 
mysterious power or being that men call God ? On this he 
pondered much, and reached at last a solution. Casting 
his eyes on the immensity of the heavens, he said that unity 
was God (Arist. Metaph. i. 5). The expression, God is a 
sphere, has also been attributed to him, though with doubt- 
ful authority. This has been differently explained by various 
critics. Some, as Cousin, Eenouvier, and others, regard the 
expression as metaphorical merely, to denote the perfection 
of deity, an idea for which he could find no better expres- 
sion or symbol than the sphere, a perfect figure complete 
in itself, equal throughout, and one. Eitter, and also Krug, 
however give it quite a different interpretation; suppose 
that by this expression, he intends to denote the entire 
unity of the material and the intellectual ; the world and 



48 ELEATIC SCHOOL. 

God, as one and the same being, and made use of the sphere 
as a symbol of this identity. Lewes interprets it of the 
literal firmament : " Overarching him was the deep blue 
infinite vault, immovable, unchangeable, embracing him and 
all things; tJiat his heart proclaimed to be G-od. As Thales 
had gazed abroad upon the sea, and felt that he was resting 
on its infinite bosom, so Xenophanes gazed above him at the 
sky, and felt that he was encompassed by it. Moreover, it 
was a great mystery, inviting, yet defying scrutiny. The 
sun and moon whirled to and fro through it, the stars were 
'pinnacled dim in its intense inane.' The earth was con- 
stantly aspiring to it in shape of vapor, the souls of men 
were perpetually aspiring to it with vague yearnings. It 
was the centre of all existence. It was existence itself. It 
was the One, the immovable, in whose bosom the many 
were moved." 

The view according to which the sphere is a mere sym- 
bol or metaphor to denote the perfection and unity of God, 
seems to me not only the far higher and nobler, but the 
one more accordant with the general spirit and tenor of the 
teachings of Xenophanes. Clearly enough, he holds the 
Deity, whether one with nature and the material world 
or not, to be self-existent, intelligent, eternal, one and 
not many, all-powerful, all- wise (Arist. de Xenoph. c. 3 ; 
Cic. Acad. ii. 37 ; Sext. Emp. Hyp. PyiT. i. 225 ; iii. 218 ; 
Adv. Math. vii. 49, viii. 326; Diog. L. ix. 19). This 
being — such is his language — "sees all, hears all, one God 
alone ; of gods and men the greatest, like mortals xieither in 
figure nor mind, who without knowing fatigue directs all 
by the power of intelligence, all vision, all cognizance, all 
hearing." This deity is not begotten, for how can he be 
born of his equal ? how of his unequal ? If not born, he 
oa.nnot perish, since he is independent, and by himself. 
He is negatively defined as being neither finite nor infinite; 
not finite, for one thing can be limited only by another, 
which implies plurality, but as the deity is one, there is no 



ELEATICSCHOOL. 49 

such limitation; not infinite, because non-heing alone, as 
haying neither beginning, middle, nor end, is infinite, but 
God is deing and so not infinite. He is neither moyable 
nor immovable, for the same reasons, one thing can only be 
moyed by another, and God is one, not many, hence not 
moyable; yet not immoyable, for non-heing alone is im- 
moyable. In a word, the Deity of Xenophanes is the one 
eternal being, self-equal, always the same, without begin- 
ning, without end, without change. Truly a grand con- 
ception for the unaided reason of any man to form of the 
Deity. 

The leading features of the theology of Xenophanes seem 
to be these two : the importance which he attaches to the 
idea of Diyine unity, the one all ; the impossibility of 
forming adequate conceptions of such a being, of fully 
comprehending him, of defining him otherwise than by 
negatives, since we know what he is not rather than what he 
is. There was a tendency to scepticism in Xenophanes, as 
manifested in that portion of his theology just named. He 
doubted rather than assented ; could not say positiyely that 
such things were so and so, but could only deny that they 
were so and so ; was cautious in affirming, bold only in ques- 
tioning. Nor was this manifest alone in his theology, where 
certainly it is a quality not out of place, but extended to all 
human knowledge. "He was the first," says Lewes, "who 
confessed the impotence of reason to compass the wide, 
exalted aims of philosophy* . . . He was a great, earnest 
spirit struggling after truth, and as he obtained a glimpse of 
her celestial countenance he proclaimed his discovery, how 
ever it might contradict what he had before announced. 
Long travel, various experience, examination of different 
systems, new and contradictory glimpses of the problem he 
was desirous of solving, produced in his mind a scepticism 
of a noble, somewhat touching sort, wholly unlike that of 
his successors. It was the combat of contradictory opinions 
in his mind, rather than disdain of knowledge. His faith 
3 



60 BLEATICSCHOOL. 

was steady, his opinions vacillating. He had a profound 
conviction of the existence of an eternal, all-wise, infinite 
Being, but this belief he was unable to reduce to a con- 
sistent formula. There is a deep sadness in these verses : 

" Certainly no mortal yet knew, and ne'er shall there be one, 
Knowing both well, the gods, and the All, whose nature we treat of ; 
For when by chance he, at times, may utter the true and the perfect. 
He wists not unconscious ; for error is spread over all things ! " 

The great advance of philosophy under his auspices, 
thinks Eitter, is the recognition, more or less distinct in all 
his teachings, of the opposition between pure truth and its 
sensiile manifestation. Yet we are not to conclude that he 
rejected all phenomena, all nature, as semblance merely, but 
only that he distrusted the knowledge thus obtained, sought 
something more certain and more valuable, sought through 
the sensible and through nature to get a glimpse of the 
eternal truth, and through the imperfect revelation which 
the material world affords, to reach the domain of pure, 
infinite, and unknown reality. 

In his natural philosophy or cosmology, he admits the 
existence of the four elements as concerned in the produc- 
tion of the universe, viz., earth, air, fire, and water. He 
denies, strictly speaking, the production or beginning of all 
being ; these elements are eternal, then, but by combination 
forms are produced, transitory, perishable, such as the earth, 
and the human race. Nothing can be produced out of 
nothing or non-being. Being, then, cannot begin to be. 
It must always have been. It may pass through various 
forms and modifications, however, and these are the mani- 
fold phenomena of nature. He holds that the petrifactions 
found in the strata of the earth, as in the mines and marble 
quarries, etc., show that the sea once covered the land, and 
and that land and water are probably changing places (So 
Hippolytus adv. Hereticos, i. 12). 



ELEATIC SCHOOL. 



61 



§ 2. — Parmenides, 

The doctrines advanced in the germ by Xenophanes, 
we find more fully developed in Parmenides. According 
to Eitter, who follows a statement of Plato, he must have 
been born somewhere about Olympiad 65, or 520 B. c. Com- 
monly regarded as disciple of Xenophanes ; may have been 
so in his youth. At least he derived his doctrines from 
him. He was of noble family; of wealth; in early life 
probably given to pleasure, from which he was diverted by 
Diochsetes to the pursuits of calm philosophy. He took an 
active part in the political affairs of his native city, and 
framed for it a code of laws so wise and admirable that the 
citizens for a time yearly renewed an oath to abide forever 
by them. Plato and Aristotle make honorable mention of 
Parmenides and his doctrines as important in philosophy. 

The chief peculiarity of his doctrine is this : His open 
war upon the evidence of sense, and his exaltation of reason 
above ideas derived from sense. The former gives only 
belief, opinion ; the latter, truth and certainty (Arist. 
Met. i. 5 ; Sext. Emp. adv. Math. viii. 3 ; Diog. Laert. ix. 
22). This doctrine was shadowed forth in Xenophanes, 
but not clearly laid down as the basis of a system. 

The principal work of Parmenides is a poem entitled 
" Nature," which opens by a well-conceived allegory illus- 
trative of the souVs longing after truth. Virgins, daughters 
of the sun, conduct the ardent poet to the midst of the realm 
of ether, to the gates of day, to the very depths of the 
divine secrets. There Dike, the goddess, dwells, who prom- 
ises to reveal to him absolute truth, and also the uncertain 
opinions of mortals ; these he is not to follow, not to be led 
by customary opinion. Opinion is uncertain, unreliable, 
follows the rash eye, and ear confused with ringing sounds, 
and tongue. 

The centre or starting point of Parmenides' system is 



, 52 ELEATICSCHOOL. 

r 

not the notion of G-od, but that of being, in which, how- 
ever, he means to include God. He starts with a more 
general idea than that of personal intelligence, or eyen 
intelligence of any kind, with that of being itself in its wide 
range. This is unity with him. 

His fundamental position is this : ^^ All is, non-entity is 
not;" i. e., there is no sach thing possible as non-entity. 
To affirm that non entity is, is a contradiction in terms. 
Mark the dialectic subtlety of this argument. " That 
which is not is inconceivable, unknowable, cannot be ex- 
pressed in words." You cannot therefore affirm its exist- 
ence. You can only think of it and speak of it as not being. 
Of course, then, nonentity is not, and of course, if so, then 
Being is. Syllogistically stated, the argument, if I under- 
stand it, would run thus: Either there is not being, or else 
being. Now there is not, and can not be, not-being; there- 
fore there is being. From this point, the system moves on 
triumphantly to its conclusions. Being, thus established, 
of course is uncreated and unchangeable; has no beginning, 
no ending, no change of existence, no parts or differences, 
all being is one and the same thing, fills all space, limited 
only by itseK. 

" Whole and self-generate, unchangeable, illimitable, 
Never was nor yet shall be its birth. All is already 
One from eternity ; what would you make its origin, and whence 
i , , Its increase ? Not from what was not. ... 

' For say what need impelled it 

Sooner or later to commence its being, and from naught arise ? " 

(Fragments of Poem on Nature, in collection of Fiiller- 

born, Arist. Met. i. 5. ii. 4 ; Phys. i. 2 ; Plutarch de Plac. 

Phil. i. 24; Sext. Emp. Hyp. PyiT. iii. 65. adv. Math. x. 46.) 

Being is, moreover, identical with unity. All being is 

one, not several and many. All is full of being. The 

\ ' relations of time and space are disregarded and set aside by 

j' ' this idea of being ; merged in the idea of the eternal unity 

or All. The being thus established, then, is single, identi- 

■ I' 



ELEATICSCHOOL. 53 

cal always with itself, neither is born, nor dies, indestructi- 
ble, indivisible. Like a sphere, it is perfect, embraces all, 
yet has its own limits maintained by the force of necessity. 
This being has no motion, but only eternal rest. What 
seems to us change and motion is merely a delusiye appear- 
ance. There is no such reality. 

The all is identical with thought and intelligence ; for 
being is one ; and thought is being, since it exists, and 
nothing but being does exist. Thought and being, then, 
are one; thought and hnowledge are identical. The fulness of 
all being is thought. The intellectual insight is only the 
expression of what is. (See Poem on Nature, verses 45, 46, 
88-91.) Eitter supposes it certain that by being Parmen- 
ides understood that eternal essence which is the sole cause 
and ground of all things. 

Eitter also considers this referring of all to the highest 
notion of pure metaphysics — that of being, as in itseK a 
dialectic progress far beyond all preceding systems. 

Parmenides did not reject all human opinions nor all 
evidence of the senses. He recognized all truth as one. 
But ai^pearances were many and changeable, and beneath 
these lay veiled the divine truth and being, though concealed 
from man. 

His view of man was a sad and gloomy one. He 
regarded him as a miserable and most imperfect being. 

His theory of the earth was mechanical. Two opposite 
elements — flight and darkness — mix and compose the world. 
From the mixture of fire and earth, water and air arise. 
The earth he places in the centre, spherical, rotating, sur- 
rounded by various rings. The upper one is of fire, the 
lower one of darkness. The earth lies midway between the 
two, and is therefore imperfect. 

Souls are driven hither, into this dark, imperfect abode 
and state of being, by stern necessity. Thus they become 
separated from the universal being. 

The seat of the soul is in the stomach, and the various 



54 ELEATICSCHOOL. 

degrees of intelligence in different persons correspond to 
the variations of heat and cold in the body, or the elements 
of light and darkness. 

The loarmer persons are the more intelligent ones. 
Woman is in this respect more perfect than man, and was 
brought into existence m the sunny south. Man in the 
colder north. 

§ 3. — Zeno op Elea. 

Not to be confounded with Zeno the Stoic. One of the 
most distinguished of the ancient philosophers; great in 
action as well as in thought. Born in the 69th or, as some 
say, in the 71st Olympiad, in either case about 500 b. c, 
perhaps 496. The pupil and friend, and, as some say, the 
adopted son of Parmenides. Early life devoted to study and 
contemplation ; learned to think more highly of intellectual 
pleasures than of wealth, or sensual gratifications, or politi- 
cal honors ; yet not a misanthrope. Lived and labored for 
the good of his fellow-citizens and of his country, yet 
declined those honors with which they would have rewarded 
him. An ardent lover of his country. He lived at a 
period when Greece was everywhere awaking to conscious- 
ness of her political bondage, and rousing herself to throw 
off the Persian yoke and to found national institutions on 
liberty. 

In this struggle Zeno shared ; one of the bravest and 
most resolute spirits of the age. Implicated in a conspiracy 
against the tyrant of Elea, he was captured and put to the 
torture. Interrogated by Nearchus as to his accomplices, 
he throws the t3rrant into great suspense and fear by naming 
all the courtiers ; reproaches the spectators for consenting to 
be slaves to such a man, bites off his tongue and spits it in 
the tyrant's face, and raises the populace to such a pitch 
of excitement that they fall upon the tyrant and slay him. 
According to some accounts, Zeno was pounded to death 
in a huge mortar. Zeno seems to have been a peculiarly 



ELE AT IC SCHOOL. 65 

shrewd and acute thinker and reasoner, well iStted to 
trouble antagonists, to attack or defend ; not so well fitted 
to discover the solid foundations of truth. His distinctions 
are subtle, and often fallacious, and his arguments in some 
degree sophistic, yet always serious and earnest; not a 
quibbler, not a sophist. 

Aristotle considers him the inyentor of dialectics, inas- 
much as he starts from acknowledged and received princi- 
ples, and reasons onward from these to his conclusions. 
The system which Zeno maintains is essentially that of 
Parmenides. Xenophanes had originated it ; Parmenides 
had given it shape and precision ; Zeno defends it from 
attack, and manfully does battle for it against its adversa- 
ries. He is a skilful fighter, and the favorite weapon with 
him is the reductio ad dbsurdum. * Plato has well defined 
the relation of Zeno to the Eleatic philosophy, when he says 
that the master established the existence of the one and the 
disciple proved the T^o/z-existence of the many. The doc- 
trine of Parmenides reduced the universe to unity, Zeno 
shows that this is true by showing the opposite not to 
be possible, that multiplicity is not and cannot be true 
(Plato, Parmenides, p. 73-75 ; Phaedrus, iii, 261; Simplicius 
ad Arist. Phys. 30). This he does by many arguments. He 
employs the mode of question and answer, on the dialogistic 
method, afterwards so skilfully used by Socrates. Zeno 
was the first to perceive the advantage of this method in 
polemic reasoning. 

Like all the Eleatics, he goes strongly against the cred- 
ibility of the phenomena of sense, and of the conceptions 
thus formed ; labors to show that all such conceptions, as 
ordinarily formed, are exceedingly doubtful and to be dis- 

* For a more favorable view of Zeno, see Butler's Hist. Phil, i., 
335-6. Butler supposes that Zeno argues as he does, merely to show- 
that the theory of a real sensible world is open to as many objections 
as his opponents urge against the rationalists, that he was no idle 
and vain disputer, etc. 



56 ELEATIC SCHOOL. 

trusted; denies the reality of sensible appearances, how- 
ever, rather than the appearances themselves, argues par- 
ticularly against space, and motion in space, as being only 
delusions of sense. 

The chief points of his reasoning against the supposed 
multiplicity of things are these three. 1, That, according 
to that theory, a thing must be like and yet unlike itself ; 
2, both one and many; 3, at rest and yet in motion. 
Under the first of these he instances, to show how decep- 
tive are sensible phenomena, the case of a grain of wheat 
falling (Arist. Phys. vii. 5). Would it make a noise ? IsTo, 
replies Protagoras. Would a bushel ? Yes. Is not a 
grain a certain definite part of a bushel ? Yes. Ought it 
not, then, to make just such a part of the noise ? Silence 
on the part of Protagoras ; Zeno has him. What says 
anybody to this ? Why, of course, that the senses are not 
sufficiently accurate to give information as to all things that 
are ; not that they, so far as they go, are not reliable. 

Under the second argument, he denies space itself, the 
conception of existence in space. If all that is, said he, 
must be in space, and if space is, then space itself must 
be in some other space, and that space again in some other, 
and so on ad infinitum. This is absurd. Therefore, space 
is not a reality (So Aristotle, Phys. iv. 3, 5 ; Simplic. in 
Phys. 130). What say we to that bright thought ? Simply 
this space does not exist as a substance, an entity. 

So far Zeno was in the right. But it does exist as a con- 
ception of the human mind, and a necessary law or mode of 
its thought. It is not set aside therefore by the above 
reasoning, which applies only to substance, or material 
entity. 

Analogous to this is his subtle reasoning to show that, 
on the theory of multiplicity, every individual existence 
must be i7ifi7iitely great; since made up of infinite parts, 
each one having an assignable magnitude of its own; yet 
infinitely small, also, since each part is infinitely small, and 



ELEATICSCHOOL. 57 

the multiplicity of infinitely small things can result only in 
the infinitely small. The third part of his reasoning, in 
which he argues against the possibility of motion (Arist. 
Phys. yi. 9, 14), is sustained by the following arguments: 

1. If a body moves, before it can reach the end of the 
supposed distance over which it passes, it must first, of 
course, pass the middle point. If it has an inch to move, 
it must first reach the half -inch point before it reaches the 
whole distance; and before it can move that half -inch it 
must move to a point just half that distance, and so ad 
infinitum. Whatever be the distance to be accomplished, 
it must first get over half of it, before it can get over the 
whole. The consequence is, you can never get the thing 
to stir at all. There is no motion. Q. E. D. 

2. The celebrated argument about the race of Achilles 
and the tortoise; the tortoise having the start of 1000 feet, 
but Achilles moving ten paces to one of the tortoise. 
Achilles can never overtake the tortoise, says Zeno ; for 
while he travels the 1000 paces, tortoise makes 100; and 
while he is running these, tortoise makes 10 more, and so 
on ad infinitum. Philosophers from Aristotle down to 
Hobbes and John Stuart Mill, have puzzled themselves to 
point out just where the fallacy lies in this argument. 
That a fallacy is there, all agree, but just what it is, ap- 
pears not quite so plain. It is a sufficient answer to say, 
with Mill and Hobbes and also with Aristotle, that time as 
well as space can be divided up in this way, and yet a finite 
time, say 5 minutes, may cover the whole transaction, just 
as a finite space, say 2,000 paces, covers the whole distance. 

3. Motion and rest are one. Por every object filling 
space rests in that space, and what we call motion is only 
the sum of the several spaces between the first and the last, 
and as the body is at rest in each one of these, so long as 
it is there, of course it is at rest all the way and all the 
while. So no motion. Q. E. D. Zeno takes essentially 
the same view of nature with Parmenides. Four elements, 

3* 



68 ELEATICSCHOOL. 

the warm, the cold, the dry, the moist, and a moving force 
regulating all, viz., necessity. The soul is a compound, he 
said, of the four elements. The system tends strongly 
to scepticism, and results in it finally. He was not a 
Sophist, however, but only distinguished sharply between 
sense-knowledge and the higher knowledge of thought 
(So Fries and Tennemann). His doctrine of God is this. 
God is eternal and one, not composed of parts, hence uni- 
form, and in figure spherical. Zeno is the founder and first 
teacher of logic (So Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 7 ; Diog. 
Laert. ix. 25). 

§ 4. — Empedocles 

Born at Agrigentum in Sicily, a Dorian colony, about 
84 Olymp. according to Ritter, i. e., 444 B. c. ; of wealthy 
family ; commonly called a Pythagorean, but incorrectly; 
some resemblance between his doctrines and those of Py- 
thagoras, but not essential ; more properly Eleatic. Sup- 
posed in his early travels to have visited Italy and Athens. 
Fable attributes to him marvellous cures, control of tempests 
and of pestilence, and a death not according to the laws of 
nature. Evidently regarded by antiquity as a marvellous 
man and a wonder-worker; makes pretension to more than 
human knowledge, clothes himself in purple, cincture of 
brass, crown of gold, train of admiring worshippers ; an- 
nounces himself as immortal, the priest and favorite of the 
gods, himself in part divine. These pretensions, supported 
by really great skill as naturalist and philosopher, as well 
as medical practitioner, gave him unbounded control over the 
superstitious reverence of the age. He was even worshipped 
as a god, it would seem, on some occasions. Strictly ascetic 
in his habits and doctrines, however, so far from a selfish 
use of power and wealth, he seems to have despised all 
human distinctions and emoluments while possessing the 
highest, and refused to accept the supreme power offered 
him by his native city. Distinguished by his liberality. 



ELEATICSCHOOL, 59 

patriotism, intellectual endowments, he seems altogether 
a remarkable man. Death uncertain, probably suicidal ; 
fabled to have perished in u^tna. 

Principal work, that is known to be genuine, and of 
which fragments are still extant, the three books on 
^' Nature," an epic poem, like the didactic verses of Par- 
menides. Adopted the poetic form probably as most ele- 
vated, and in keeping with the priestly and prophetic char- 
acter. This of course would not recommend it to Aristotle, 
who, with little taste for the poetical and little appreciation 
for the mystic and ideal elements in philosophy, objects to 
this work, its entire absence of logical reasonings. The 
poem appeals, like all poems, to the gods and muses. 

" And thou, I beg, much mindful muse, white-armed virgin, 
Grant me to know whate'er befits the creature of a day." 

It is only through the intellect, he continues, by means of 
the senses, that the truth can be arrived at ; not by the 
senses, but only by the right reason can it be known, which 
(right reason) is partly human, partly divine. The work 
complains everywhere of the limited extent and uncertainty 
of human knowledge. 

" Swift fated and conscious how brief is life's pleasureless portion, 

Like the wind-driven smoke they are carried backward and forward, 

Each trusting to naught save what his experience vouches. 

On all sides disturbed : yet wishing to find out the whole truth. 

In vain ; neither by eye nor ear perceptible to man, jy 

Nor to be grasped by mind : and thou, when thus thou hast wandered, 

Wilt find that no further reaches the knowledge of mortals." 

— Ritter's Version. 

This prominent ascription of human frailty and ignor- 
ance to the fault of the senses and generally to the imper- 
fection of the cognitive faculty in man, is the peculiar phi- 
losophy of the Eleatic school, and fixes Empedocles among 
that class. 

" But consider each thing, with measure, according as it is evident. 
And have no more confidence in a sensation of sight than of hearing, 



60 ELEATIC SCHOOL. 

Or in the ear than in the manifestations of the tongue, 
Or in all other things wherein the way for the thought 
Is in the memhers. Withhold thy faith. Think only what is evident." 

— Renouvier's Translation. 

Empedocles distinguishes between the divine and human 
knowledge the former is that of Deity, and is inexpressible, 
as is God himself. He inveighs against the common and 
unworthy notions of God entertained in mythology. 

" Happy he who possesses the treasures of the thought divine, 
Unhappy he who rests not satisfied with the shadowy conception 

which one has of the gods. 
It is not possible to see him with the eyes nor to take him with the 

hands, 
Which is the principal method of persuasion for the heart of man. 
A human head serves not gracefully his members. 
Two branches hang not from his shoulders. 
Nor with feet — nor legs — nor having sexual members ; 
But an understanding sacred, ineffable, exists 
Which traverses the entire world with its rapid thoughts." 

— Renouvier's Version. 

According to Eitter, he differs from the Eleatic m not 
making prominent the negative part of this doctrine, which 
represents God as indivisiile, incorruptible, ingenerable, 
etc., out of space and time, not dwelling upon and seeking 
to find truth in the system of natural things. 

Empedocles holds the oneness of all truth, like the other 
Eleatae. It is a ball in its unity. It is a sphere, and hence 
the sphere has been regarded as the deity of Empedocles. 

" Thus within the secret bosom of harmony firm-fixed 
Is the sphere, well rounded, in glad rest calmly rejoicing." 

This unity is the work of and is ruled by love ; is one 
with it. Love is the only true force ; has its seat in the 
centre, and pervades all ; the first cause which unites all 
together ; the 07ie, the only ground of the universe ; the 
only entity. Thus he, Avith the other Eleatas, makes the 
material principle and the active to be one and the same ; 



ELEATICSCHOOL. 61 

not, like Anaxagoras, distinct, but as Parmenides, with 
whom the moving and- the moved force are one, i. e., lire. 

The complete knowledge of this unity, this mundane 
whole, is indeed impossible. Yet to know this should be 
the great object of human endeavor. 

" Contemplate it in mind, nor sit with looks of amazement — 
Love, which to the frame of man connatural is deemed. 
Spring of their thoughts and deeds of love and kindly affection, 
Which they invoke by name of joy and Aphrodite. 
But it no eye has seen within the universe of things — 
No mortal eye." 

That is, according to Eitter, the knowledge is necessarily 
imperfect, for man is a part of the whole, and cannot com- 
prehend the whole ; recognizing each element singly, but 
not all in their unity ; -the true unity is known only to itself. 

The sphere plays an important part in the philosophy 
of Empedocles. Into it all things are combined by love, 
without difference or distinction ; they lead there a happy 
life, replete with happiness and holiness. 

*' They know no G-od of war nor spirit of battles." 
Pure and bloodless sacrifices are there offered, and all is 
peace and joy and love. 

But this perfect harmony is disturbed by the principle 
of hate, which comes in to break the unity and dissolve the 
spell ; produces separation, emanation, plurality, beings ; 
hence the sensible world and its phenomena, the world of 
movement and of separate beings. This movement of sep- 
aration seems to be associated with crime, and to pertain to j 
only di> portio7i of the whole ; the human imperfection and I 
crime and misery are connected with it. Thus the following. 

" This is the law of fate, of the Grods, an olden enactment \ 

If with guilt or murder a spirit polluteth his members, I 

Of those who have obtained an existence enduring through ages, ;| 

Thrice ten thousand years must he wander apart from the blessed, I 

Hence doomed to stray a fugitive from gods and an outcast, ' 

To raging strife submissive. " , 



62 ELEATICSCHOOL. 

The restless, disturbed life of men and things in this 
world of strife and constant motion are strongly contrasted 
with the blissful life in the sphere. Everything in this 
world is spiritual, even material objects partake of reason 
and knowledge, the elements are influenced by hate and 
love. Having been separated and set in motion by hate, 
tliey are no longer at rest, they are in perpetual conflict, 
and hate all. Thus expressed is this unblessed life, this 
conflict of the mundane, 

" For the rage of the ethereal air seaward pursues it. 

Sea spits it back on earth's shores and earth up to the brightness 
Of the unwearied sun, who back to the eddies of ether 
Rejects it : each receives it from each ; all equally hate it." 

This principle of hate is, like that of love, inherent in 
things themselves ; hence Aristotle objects that Empedo- 
cles leaves too much to chance. He seems however to have 
an idea of a higher principle, after all, uniting these two 
opposites, love and hate, viz., destiny, on which all depends. 
This separation and conflict is unnatural. Hence things 
strive, notwithstanding the inherent moving force of hate, 
to regain unity, rest, the sphere. This may be attained by 
purification, life of abstinence, avoiding the sources of 
impurity and of hate, care not to shed the blood of any 
living thing, entire consecration to a principle of love. 

This perpetual restless movement of things gives rise to 
different shapes and configurations of the separate elements. 
They pass through changes continually ; hence what is 
called his doctrine of metempsychosis. Man has been at one 
time a plant, a bird, fish, a maiden, etc., that is, the element- 
ary parts of his body have passed through all these changes. 

The pious soul, duly purified and absolved, and hav- 
ing expiated by the misery of its mundane being the 
former guilt, enjoys after death a god-like existence. 

" When, leaving this body, to the free ether thou comest 
A God undying thou shalt be, no longer a mortal." 

Love tends to combine and organize harmoniousl}^ these 



ELEATICSCHOOL. 63 

diverse and conflicting elements, and the world is under this 
influence gradually progressing to a higher and more perfect 
condition, toward unity and the sphere again, from the 
imperfect toward the perfect. Thus Empedocles sought to 
bring the existing evil to a good end. 

He held to the existence of four elements : fire, air, sea, 
earth, out of which all organic existence is produced. 
Plants ^7*5^ produced by agency of fire and other elements, 
before day and night were separated. Plants possess feel- 
ing, desire, reason, knowledge. These all the works of 
love ; to preside over the orderly composition of the ele- 
ment is the worh of love ; to separate, that of Jiate. The 
world of hate is wholly subordinate to the world of love ; 
a minor affair, an exception to the general rule. 

He holds that nothing can be created and nothing cease 
to be. Thus : 

*' Fools to whom is not vouchsafed far-reaching insight. 
Who think aught can begin to be which formerly was not, 
Or that aught which is can perish and utterly decay." 

" Another truth I now unfold — no natural birth 
Is there of mortal things, nor death's destruction final ; 
Nothing is there but a mingling and then separation of mingled. 
Which are called a birth and death by ignorant mortals." 

" First know, four are the roots of all, and elements of things. 
Fire, and water, and Earth, and Ether's measureless expanse ; 
For thence is all that is, or was, or ever shall be." 

Of these elements he regarded fire as the chief. Our 
knowledge of physical objects is through mechanical con- 
tact of bodies, certain effluxes from them passing off into 
corresponding pores in the recipient body; and these 
sense-impressions unite in the consciousness by means of 
the conflux of blood to the heart. Man's advantages and 
deficiencies are all owing to the ratio in which his blood is 
compounded, hence too the superior dexterity of certain 
members of the body. Man however partakes of a divine 



64 THESOPHISTS. 

knowledge far superior to this sensuous. Hence he enjoins 
on man to contemplate in his own mind the God, love. The 
distingtdshing excellence of this Eleatic theory is its first 
attempt to correct sensible imjoressions ly pure reason. So 
Hitter. The resemblance of Hegel's theory to this of the 
Eleatic, and especially of Empedocles, may be traced also in 
Cousin. Eries traces a marked resemblance of the system 
of Empedocles to the Pythagorean ; (for a general view of 
his system, see Arist. Met. i. 3, 4, ii. 4 ; Sext. Emp. adv. 
Math. vii. 121, ix. 620, x. 317 ; Diog. L. viii. 76). 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SOPHISTS 

APPEARED at a later period, and may be regarded as 
the natural result of the times, not less than the preceding 
schools of philosophers. They have been greatly censured, 
especially by the Socratic and Platonic schools ; yet accom- 
plished an important mission in the progress of philosophy 
and the age. 

§ 1. — The causes which produced this school and made it 

what it was. 

I. The state of the country and the circumstances of 
the age were such as to lead naturally to the formation of 
such a school. The different states of Greece were coming 
into closer contact with each other. Mind was quickened 
by this. Trade brought men together ; deeper interest 
and more general was felt in science and learning ; 
these became more common property ; demand for teachers 
increased ; demand for information manifold and various : 
scientific thought, positive, tangible, practical information, 
took the place of mere ideal and speculative thought. The 



THE SOPHISTS. 65 

age became business-like, practical, stirring ; men lost their 
faith in the quaint old mythologies and theories, and asked 
for something Tcnowahle. 

The Sophists appeared and answered to this call — not 
soplioi, but sopMstai, teachers of wisdom — men who knew 
a thing or two, and could let you into the secret forthwith. 
An appearance of wisdom where there is none, is Aristotle's 
idea of sophistry. A flippant, conceited, arrant position, 
not without considerable erudition and real learning, but 
specious rather than solid, communicatiye rather than re- 
flective: men of action rather than inyestigation, men of 
show and outside appearance rather than of sound learn- 
ing and real faith; men for the age, made to order, and 
who made knowledge and wisdom to order— men who phi- 
losophize for the sake of. display or of gain, is Cicero's idea 
of them. The great need of the time was not so much to 
to know as fco communicate what was known, the art of 
talking — and these men had it to perfection, they were 
rlietoreSy speakers, and could in easy lessons teach you how 
to hold forth eloquently upon any subject, whether it were 
one that you understood or not, nay, it was their boast 
that they could make the worse appear the better reason. 
Subtle, skilful in words, acute in rhetoric, detecting differ- 
ences where there were none, and oyerlooking them where 
they really existed, it was their great art and profession to 
mystify and confuse, to persuade men that they were walk- 
ing on their heads or flying in the air when they were all 
the while on their feet. 

The age of faith and earnestness had gone, hollow pre- 
tence took the place of it. How different the thought of 
those men from that of the great, honest, earnest loni- 
ans, Thales, Anaximander, etc., gi'oping after the solution of 
their great problem, or rejoicing in the belief that they had 
found it. These men had no faith in anything ; they were 
sceptics, downright atheists mostly ; to doubt, disbelieve, 
prove the contrary from the impossibility of believing. 



66 



THE SOPHISTS. 



ridicule you for haying ever believed anything — this was 
their vocation. 

They grew out of the preceding systems of philoso- 
phy not less than from the circumstances of the age. All 
these systems had been one-sided and imperfect. Eitter 
develops this idea with great justness. They had been exclu- 
sive, and, when pushed to their results, landed in absurdi- 
ties. They were unsatisfactory attempts to grasp the true, 
the infinite, the unknown — but failures ; and gradually 
the mind began, after so many vain attempts, to sink 
down in the conviction that nothing was knowable, and 
nothing attainable, nay, perhaps, nothing true even ; 
began to lose confidence in all knowledge. This was pre- 
cisely the sceptical tendency of the age, which resulted in, 
and gave birth to the Sophists as a sect. They were the 
full development and expression of this latent tendency, 
and did in time much to promote it. 

Those earlier systems of philosophy also had themselves 
really done much to weaken the faith in the popular myths 
and superstitions of the age ; had cultivated the spirit of 
inquiry, of scientific thought, before which, little by little, 
the popular faith in the gods, and stories pertaining to the 
gods, had melted away and dried up; and men were ready 
now to inquire further. Since these old traditions are not 
true; are even absurd, who will tell us what is true ? Nay, is 
not the whole thing a humbug ? With this, of course, 
not religious belief alone would be undermined, but moral- 
ity and general honesty. Such was the case, and when the 
Sophists came upon the stage, and began to teach, that all 
things were about equally credible and equally useful and 
true; in other words, that nothing was so, and nothing was 
of any consequence in itself, save only for appearance sake 
and the gain to come of it ; that virtue and religion and 
morality were creations of the state, fictions of the human 
mind, useful but unreal — they found ready listeners. They 
carried out the rationalistic and sceptical tendencies of the 



THESOPHISTS. 67 

prevalent philosophy to its extreme. They showed the 
folly and utter failure of the preceding methods, and so 
prepared the way for a sounder and a wholly different phi- 
losophy. Hence they acted a most important part in the 
progress of thought. It was necessary that there should he 
Sophists, and it was time that they should be then. They 
were as essential to the establishment of a true wisdom and } | 

a true philosophy in the world, as night is to sunrise.* 

§ 2. — The Distinguishing Tenets of the School and its 
Peksonaij History. 

In general, as already intimated, the Sophists were scep- 
tics : no faith in anything ; none in truth, none in facts 
and the sensible world, none in man, none in God ; hollow- 
hearted, of course — men -of words not of things, dialectic, 
rhetorical, subtle, false. Maintained boldly and specifically 
these two leading positions : the uncertainty of all particu- 
lar truths and, in fact, the impossibility of all truth. 

The two leading names in the school are Protagoras 
and Gorgias. The first, born at Abdera about 485 or 486, 
died about 415 b. c. Common fame makes him a disciple 
of Democritus, but this is without evidence. Most accom- 
plished of the Sophists ; gives lessons in rhetoric in Athens 
and Sicily; gives lessons also in polity and citizenship. He 
proceeds always on the principle that of every proposition 
the contrary may be advanced and maintained, if one has 
the ability and skill to do it ; and that of the two proposi- 
tions, one is about as true and about as good as the other. 
**His doctrine tends to deny," says Bitter, *' the possi- 

* Lewes defends tlie Sophists against the usual charges, on the 
ground that the state would never have tolerated such teachings, and 
therefore they did not so teach, he infers. So Grote. But the evi- 
dence is too strong to be thus set aside. For general estimate of 
Sophists see Arist. de Soph. Elench. c. i ; Cicero, Acad. ii. 23, 35 ; 
Xenophon, Memorabilia i. 6 ; Ueberweg, 1. 73 ; Butler, Hist. PhiL 
vol. i. p. 340-345). 



68 



THE SOPHISTS. 



bility of anything objective being represented by thought, 
and consequently to make all thought a mere appearance." 

According to him, nothing is, in itself, ly itself, but only 
sustains a certain relation to some other thing. The rela- 
tion is the only existence. Man is the ^neasiore of all things 
(Plato, Theaet. ii. 68; Diog. L. ix. 51; Arist. Met. x. 6; Sext. 
Emp. Hyp. Pyrr. i. 21»6-219), of heing and of non-heing. 
By which, says Eitter, he intended that to every one things 
are in the relation in which they appear, that to every one 
that presentation is true which he frames for himself. This 
of course destroys the universality of all propositions. Every 
thought is true for him who entertains it, and of course 
you cannot contradict any opinion or position whatsoever. 
Thought is only the relation of the thinker to the thing- 
thought of, and the thinking subject, the soul itself, is only 
the sum of the different moments or acts of thinking. Of 
course this resolves all thought into mere sensation, and 
makes sensuous impressions the only realities ; things are 
cold or hot, not at all in themselves, but only as they seem 
so to us. He denies of course, then, all science, and boldly 
attacks geometry even as false. There is no such thing as 
the circle and the straight line, nor is it true that the 
circle, as imagined, touches the tangent in only one point. 
He is said to have maintained the general opinion that every- 
thing is true of everything, no difference of true and false 
(Plato, Theaet. 89, 90, 102 ; Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. vii. 60 ; 
Oic- Acad. ii. 46 ; Diog. L. ix. 51, 53), and that nothing 
is one thing rather than another. Query, if so, then what 
becomes of his denial of geometrical propositions ? — and 
why does he teach at all, if nothing is t:ue ? 

While Protagoras was pushing the Ionian philosophy of 
sensationalism to its utmost extreme, Gorgias the Leontine, 
a still bolder and more shameless Sophist, carried the Eleatic 
doctrine also to the very farthest limit, and landed in abso- 
lute nihilism. He was, according to tradition, the disciple 
of Empedooles; flourished about 88th Olympiad, L e., 428 



THE SOPHISTS. 69 

B. c. (born about 483, died about 375) ; famous as rheto- 
rician ; acquired wealth, died in old age ; style florid, pomp- 
ous, adorned, wordy, cold ; principal strength lay in antith- 
esis J boasted that he could speak extempore on any sub- 
ject, and answer briefly or at length any question that might 
be put to him. As teacher of youth, he confined himself 
chiefly to oratory, and laughed at those who professed to 
teach yirtue, of which he expressed his contempt. "Wrote 
a work on non-being. These three positions (Sext. Emp. 
adv. Math. vii. 65-86 ; Arist. de Xenoph. Zeno and Grorgias, 
c. 5, 6) : 1. Nothing is. 2. If anything is, it cannot be 
known. 3. If it can, it cannot be imparted to others. 
Argues thus in fayor of the first position : Being is either 
that which is, or that which is not, or that which is 
and is not both at ont3e ; the two last are contradict- 
ions. Being then, is that which is. But this is im- 
possible, for it must be, in that case, either produced or 
eternal ; if the latter, then infinite, in which case it cannot 
exist in another, for the infinite admits of no superior; nor 
yet in itself, for that is to make it at once both sub- 
stance and place; so then it cannot exist at all. If being- 
be supposed, howeyer, not eternal but produced, then it 
owes its birth either to being or to non-being not to being, 
for that is the yery thing in question, and of course could 
not produce anything before it existed; not to non-being, 
for non-being cannot produce since it does not exist. Is 
being, then, at once begotten and eternal ? No, for this is 
self-contradictory. Since then it is neither begotten nor 
eternal nor both together, eyidently it is not at all. In 
other words, nothing exists, since neither being exists, nor 
non-being, nor yet both at once. 

Second proposition. If something exists, it is incom- 
prehensible. He shows that in order for being to be com- 
prehended, thought must itself be being, else being could 
not be an object of thought, i. e,, be comprehended. If the 
object is white, the conception of it must be white also. 



70 THESOPHISTS. 

If, however, all thought is being, then everything which 
we think, (is true) — exists. Which is absurd. Therefore 
being is incomprehensible. Another argument, also. If 
that which we think, exists, then what does not exist can- 
not be thought, for the contrary of being is non-being, and 
if being is thought, then non-hQing should be not thought. 
But this is absurd. If there is such a thing as being, then, 
it is incomprehensible, that is, incapable of being thought. 

Third position. Being, if it exists and can be known, 
is incommunicable. Words are not things, objects, but 
only signs to express them. What one sees, for instance, 
is not audible, and cannot be imparted to the ear. Dis- 
course differs in its nature from other sensible things, 
and can no more indicate what is foreign to itself than 
things themselves can indicate each other's nature. The 
object begets the discourse, but the discourse expresses not 
the object. Nor can one hearer think the same as another, 
for the same can not ie at once in two different places.* 

This of course assumes that the sensuously perceptible 
is the true, the standard ; and that cognoscible truth is a 
matter of sensible experience. Here lies the fallacy of the 
whole. The reasoning of course strikes at the validity and 
reality of all intellectual knowledge. The contrast between' 
sensation and reason is made use of to show the nothingness 
of the latter, just as Zeno had used it to show the futility 
of the former. 

The dogmas of Protagoras and of Gorgias — all thought 
is knowledge, and no thought is knowledge — tend ultimately 
to the same thing, i. e., that in thought is no recognition 
of real being, but only a representation of the phenotnenal ; 
that there is no objective reality corresponding to the con- 
ceptions of the mind. The doctrine of Protagoras and 

* The distinction between the tliought and the thing thought of, 
and also between the thought and the word which expresses that 
thought, is first brought to view in these three positions of Gorgias, 
as Tennemann and Krug have both remarked. 



THE SOPHISTS. 71 

Gorgias as to God is that his existence very doubtful. Pro- 
tagoras said he did not know whether the gods existed or 
not ; the obscurity of the subject, and the shortness of his 
life prevented (Diog. L. ix. 51 ; Plato Theaet. 92 ; Sext. 
Emp. adv. Math. ix. 56, 57 ; Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 12, 29). 

The Sophists were of great use in philosophy. How ? 

They first called attention distinctly to the subjective 
phase of being — ^the mind itself ; whereas only objective had 
been all the previous systems. They showed that nothing 
can be done till we settle the questions respecting the 
nature and origin of our own cognitions and impressions, 
draw the distinguishing line between sense and intellect 
more clearly than before ; and called attention to that im- 
portant distinction. They taught men to doubt, and so 
made them more cautious ultimately in philosophizing. 

They showed how barren and worthless any and all 
philosophy, that recognizes not validity of moral distinctions, 
and how dangerous to the weKare of man and the state. 

They prepared the way, in fine, for that star in the 
East, that was soon to arise upon the human mind — ^the 
doctrines, the life, the character of Socrates. 



^ii; 



PERIOD SECOND. 



SOOEATIO. 



The preceding period is properly but an introduction to 
this. The true philosophic method and spirit now begin. 
Preceding thinkers haye but ;prej)ared the way for the rise 
and deyelopment of the- true philosophy. At first, nian 
is occupied chiefly with external nature, "the root and 
source," says Eitter, "of all intellectual life." He identifies 
himself with the uniyerse around him, and his science is the 
science of uniyersal nature. Thus the Ionian philosopher. 
This, howeyer, does not long content him. He obseryes in 
himself what he finds nowhere else — the faculty of reason -, 
cyidently, the more he considers it, not a physical power, 
but one peculiar to himself. There is no longer, then, a 
complete agreement between himself and the powers of 
nature ; his faith in this identity, in the agreement of 
the two, is shaken. The ethical and the physical begin 
to be distinguished. He can adyance only by entering a 
new path, and recognizing the new elements, reason and 
morality. Otherwise he must make war upon this new 
principle and put down both reason and morals, making 
nature alone the arbiter. This the Sophists sought to 
do, "to show that reason is in fact nothing but a power 
of nature and that might makes right." This of course 
will neyer succeed for any time, for it is yiolence to the 
nature of man. It will open the way and create the 
demand for a new and better philosophy — that of reason, 
4 



74 



SOCRATES. 



that of morals. Thus, precisely, it was that the mind in 
its search for truth, and some positive science of itself, 
wondered and toiled in that first period already considered. 
Thus far precisely had it advanced up to the time of Soc- 
rates. A new era now opened on it, a new and golden age 
of philosophic inquiry. It was now to enter on a better 
path, pursue a better method, and arrive at better results. 

General Character of this Period. — It is commonly re- 
garded as emphatically ethical^ in distinction from the pre- 
ceding. In one sense it is so. That is, it brought distinctly 
forward that element which had no place in the sophistical 
and physical reasonings of the preceding period — the moral. 

But it was not moral exclusively. It embraced a higher 
range of thought ; and by dialectical investigation sought 
to give completeness and perfection to science by making 
it comprehend both nature and reason. This was the true 
characteristic of the Socratic philosophy. This perception 
of the unity of science, this comprehensive grasp of all 
knowledge as essentially one, this recognition of the human 
consciousness of one's self in thinking, is found in none_ of 
the earlier schools, and constitutes the peculiar character 
and value of this period. 



CHAPTER I. 



SOCRATES. 



§ 1. — Life of Socrates. 

It has been well remarked by Kitter, that his scientific 
influence is dependent very much on his individual life 
and character. The fact that his disciples recorded so 
many personal traits of the man, shows that he impressed 
them, not by his doctrines alone, but by his life, and that 
he stamped his entire image on their minds. He was not a 
philosopher alone, but a man ; and it was the man, quite 



SOCRATES. 75 

as much as the philosopher^ that remained in the minds 
and hearts of those who had once seen and heard him. 

He was the son of humble parents, Sophroniscus, a 
statuary, and Phsenarete, a midwife ; born about 469 b. c. 
and educated as an artist or statuary, with probably at first 
few literary advantages. Athens was, however, at that 
time the intellectual centre of Greece, and thither flocked 
all who had aught to communicate in letters, art, science, 
or philosophy. Socrates availed himself of these opportu- 
nities to cultivate the acquaintance of the most distin- 
guished teachers of whatever science or art ; took lessons 
in music, which through life he continued to cultivate ; 
became proficient even in the physical sciences of astron- 
omy and geography — to which, however, he allowed but a 
secondary rank and importance — and seems, in fact, to 
have neglected no branch of learning. It was the age of 
Pericles, and no Athenian youth, thirsting for knowledge, 
was denied. 

Like Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, 
Socrates was at one time a soldier. As such he distin- 
guished himself for endurance of the hard life of the camp, 
and for personal bravery. 

Plato has left us a fine description of the military life 
of Socrates. ^^At one time we " (Alcibiades and Socrates) 
'^ were fellow soldiers, and had our mess together in the 
camp before Potidsea. Socrates there overcame, not only 
me, but every one besides, in endurance of toils ; when, as 
often happens in a campaign, we were reduced to few pro- 
visions, there were none who could sustain hunger like 
Socrates, and when we had plenty, he alone seemed to en- 
joy our military fare. He never drank much, willingly ; but 
v/hen he was compelled, he conquered all even in that -to 
which he was least accustomed, and what is most astonishing, 
no person ever saw Socrates drunk, either then or at any 
other time. In the depth of winter — and the winters there 
are excessively rigid — he sustained calmly incredible hard- 



76 SOCRATES. 

ships ; and among other things, while the frost was intol- 
erably severe, and no one went out of their tents, or if they 
went out, wrapped themselves up carefully, and put fleeces 
under their feet, and bound their legs with hairy skins, 
Socrates went out only with the same cloak on that he 
usually wore, and walked barefoot upon the ice, more easily 
indeed than those who had sandalled themselves so deli- 
cately ; so that the soldiers thought he did it to mock 
their want of fortitude. ... In one instance he was 
seen early in the morning standing in one place rapt in 
meditation, and as he seemed not to be able to unravel the 
subject of his thoughts, he still continued to stand as in- 
quiring and discussing within himself; and when noon 
came the soldiers observed him, and said to one another, 
' Socrates has been standing there thinking ever since the 
morning.' At last some lonians came to the spot, and, 
having supped, as it was summer, bringing their blankets, 
they lay down to sleep in the cool, they observed that 
Socrates continued to stand there the whole night, until 
morning, and that when the sun rose he saluted it with a 
prayer and departed." 

The same writer has spoken of the appearance of Soc- 
rates on the battle-field at Delium, after the defeat of the 
Athenian forces, and while all was confusion and utter 
rout. He was on foot, heavily armed, and Alcibiades com- 
ing up on horseback, observed him walking, and darting 
his regards around ^'^with a majestic composure, looking 
tranquilly both on his friends and on his enemies, so that 
it was evident to every one, even from afar, that whoever 
should venture to attack him, would encounter a desperate 
resistance." He departed in safety, for men hesitate to 
totfch those who exhibit such a countenance as that of 
Socrates even in defeat. 

His firmness and courage were equally conspicuous in 
the only instances in which he took part in political affairs. 
He could face not only death, but that which many a brave 



SOCBATES. 77 

soldier has been unable to withstand — public opinion. He , :„, 

conld defy tbe thirty tyrants, and defy an Athenian mob. ||| \ 

The thirty ordered him, with four others, to arrest Leon of 
Salamis, a man who had the right of Athenian citizenship. 
It was an arbitrary proceeding. Socrates would do noth- 
ing of the kind. ** GoYernment, although it was so power- 
ful," he says, '^ did not frighten me into doing anything 
unjust. . . The four went to Salamis and took Leon, 
but I went away home." 

It is uncertain at what age Socrates engaged in the 
instruction of youth ; probably not until somewhat mature, 
as it was not till after many struggles in the earlier period 
of his life, that he arrived at anything like certainty and 
satisfaction in his own mind. He seems yery gradually, 
and perhaps at first with no set purpose or plan of the sort, 
to have gathered about him the noble youth of Athens, 
who found his conversation instructive. 

The personal appearance of Socrates must have been any- 
thing but prepossessing. Imagine a man past the freshness 
of youth, and the manly vigor of middle life ; of a counte- 
nance marked in every feature, but in every feature far 
from beautiful ; with eye-balls rotund and projecting, nose 
depressed and flattened, nostrils dilated and upturned, lips 
compressed, with not mere firmness but sharpness ; the 
cool critic and cruel satirist not to be mistaken in that 
whole ensemhle of feature ; not mere firmness visible 
there, but keen irony and bitter sarcasm and scorn of the 
follies of the age, and quick insight into and contempt of 
the weaknesses and foibles of men — these enthroned there in 
that eye-brow and lip, looking into you with imperturbable 
coolness, and detecting at a glance your weaker and assaila- 
ble points of character ; a figure by no means calculated to 
make amends for anything unprepossessing in the counte- 
nance ; a low, ungainly figure, rough and coarse in its whole 
contour ; a belly large and unwieldy, as if to make sure that 
no ideality of the brain and airy fancy should ever endan- 



78 BOCRATEB. 

ger the specific gravity of the general frame ; a dress coarse 
and simple in the extreme, and manners to correspond. 
Such is the founder of the ideal philosophy, the first true 
Grecian school, the first man of the age — perhaps of the 
world hitherto, in point of true greatness of soul and the 
highest wisdom, — such in personal appearance, according 
to the descriptions left us by both Xenophon and Plato. 
Imagine such a man as we have now drawn, coarsely at- 
tired, singular in demeanor, walking barefoot along the 
elegant marbles of the Grecian metropolis, stopping now 
and then for a time, lost in meditation and fixed to one 
spot regardless of the gay and fluttering crowds that passed 
him by, some with a laugh and some with stupid stare ; 
as unmindful he of the rare elegancies of the accomplished 
city, as the accomplished city was unmindful of the poor 
philosopher whom it distinguished not from the common 
Sophist of the day. Yet not without influence, not without 
respect, this man ; for, coarse and unmannerly though he 
be, awkward in form and figure, and scornful of the little 
elegancies of the capital, you see he goes not alone through 
the streets. Some of the first and most refined youth of 
Athens attend him ; have learned that those compressed 
and scornful lips speak golden words ; have come within 
the charmed circle of that strange power and influence, the 
like of which was perhaps never exerted by mortal man 
over his fellow men ; have learned with him to know 
themselves, and to despise what a foolish world most prizes 
and courts. 

*^It was impossible," says Lewes (Hist. Phil. vol. i. 
p. 133), " for Socrates to enter the market-place without 
at once becoming an object of attention. His ungainly 
figure, his moral character, and his bewitching tongue, 
excited and enchained curiosity. He became known to 
every citizen. Who had not listened to him ? Who had 
not enjoyed his inimitable irony ? Who had not seen him 
demolish the arrogance and pretension of some reputed 



SOCRATES. 79 

wise man ? Socrates must have been a terrible antagonist 
to all people who believed that they were wise because they 
could discourse fluently ; and these were not few. He 
always declared that he knew nothing. When a man 
professed knowledge on any point, especially if admiring 
crowds gave testimony to that profession, Socrates was sure 
to step up to him, and professing ignorance, entreat to be 
taught. Charmed with so humble a Hstener, the teacher 
began. Interrogated, he very unsuspectingly assented to 
some very evident proposition ; a conclusion from that, 
almost as evident, next received his assent ; from that 
moment he was lost. With great power of logic, with 
much ingenious subtlety, and sometimes with daring sophis- 
tication, a web was formed from which he could not extri- 
cate himself. His own admissions were proved to lead to 
monstrous conclusions '; these conclusions he repugned, but 
could not see where the gist of his error lay. The laughter 
of all bystanders bespoke his defeat. Before him was his 
adversary, imperturbably calm, apparently innocent of all 
attempt at making him ridiculous. Confused but not con- 
futed, he left the spot, indignant with himself, but more 
indignant with the subtlety of his adversary." 

If Socrates, however, sometimes employed the weapons of 
the Sophists, it was only to confute the Sophists themselves, 
or to destroy at once the arguments and the arrogance of 
some conceited opponent. He was himself no Sophist. 

" He was a cool fellow, adding to his humor a perfect 
temper, and a knowledge of his man, be he whom he might 
whom he talked with, which laid the companion open to 
certain defeat in any debate, and in this debate he immod- 
erately delighted. The young men are prodigiously fond 
of him, and invite him to their feasts, whither he goes for 
conversation. He can drink, too ; has the strongest head 
in Athens ; and after leaving the whole party under the 
table, goes away, as if nothing had happened, to begin new 
dialogues with somebody that is sober. In short, he was 



80 SOCEATES. 

wliat our country people call an old one.'' . . . One of the 
most remarkable traits of his mind was the tact and readi- 
ness with which he adapted himself to the mental condi- 
tion of the listener. He knew that all useful instruction 
must begin with the perfect understanding of the wants 
and mental idiosyncrasies of the learner. He knew how to 
meet those whom he addressed. 

He was withal a perfect Greek, deyoted to Athens, 
which, after the mihtary exploits of early life, he seems 
neyer to have quitted. He looked at all things, even at 
morals, from a patriotic stand-point. The state was first 
and chief in his thoughts. 

In his domestic character he may not have been, and 
probably was not, a model ; too absent-minded and wrapt 
in contemplation too profound, to be always sufficiently 
thoughtful of family matters, even had Xantippe been 
more amiable. His home was the state ; his children were 
his disciples. 

It was in the early part of the year 399 b. c, that 
Socrates, then seventy years old, was cited before the tri- 
bunal, and put upon his trial on the following charges, 
'^ Socrates is culpable because he recognizes not the gods 
which the city recognizes, but introduces other new divini- 
ties. He is culpable also because he corrupts the youth. 
Penalty, death." Schwegier supposes that his trial was not 
at first intended to be fatal, but only to humble his spirit and 
teach him the power of the people. Unquestionably the 
public mind was prejudiced against Socrates. He was a 
reprover and a reformer, a severe critic of men and manners. 
Many had felt the keenness of his sarcasm, and hated him 
for it. He was reputed by the multitude a Sophist. The 
mass had little in common with him. He saw through 
and ridiculed much that they held sacred ; had views of his 
own in manners, morals, and religion ; was wholly uninflu- 
enced by authority ; held up to scorn the foibles and foUies 
of the age ; was altogether a dangerous sort of man to that 



SOCRATES. 81 

large and respectable class of worthies, to be found in every 
age, who are mainly interested in keeping all things substan- 
tially as they are. 

Political prejudices came in also to render the man 
obnoxious to the prevailing faction. He had been the 
teacher, and was charged with being the adviser of Alcibia- 
des, and even of Critias. Their parties and their policies 
were no longer in the ascendant. Democracy was rampant, 
reformers and aristocrats no longer in demand. In the eyes 
of the Athenian populace, Socrates was an aristocrat, as 
well as a reformer. His death was decided upon as a 
matter of state policy, and cloaked under the decent charge 
of impiety to the gods, and the corruption of youth. Aris- 
tophanes, the poet, had already, twenty years before, 
expressed the popular estimate of the man in holding him 
up to ridicule as a Sophist and a conceited buffoon. 

It probably contributed not a little to his death that he 
appeared before his judges with such perfect coolness and 
indifference to his fate, never for a moment consenting to 
humble himself before them, or to employ any of the usual 
artifices to move their pity, scarcely even to plead in his own 
defence. He might have escaped had he taken a different 
course. He was far above that, however. 

The bearing of Socrates on his trial was every way 
worthy of the man and the philosopher. Calm, self- 
possessed, fearless — a brave soul was on trial for the truth. 
What had it to fear ? Socrates had been too long accus- 
tomed to penetrate with keen observant eye the hypocrisy, 
deceit, and conceit of men, to see through and through 
them, and tell them what he saw and what he thought, to 
stand in fear of any of them. We can readily believe that 
even an air of haughtiness and contempt might mark his 
demeanor on this occasion. 

His whole bearing, especially his closing speech, affords 

one of the finest instances of the morally sublime. There 

was one present on whose mind it made a deep impression, 
4* 



i 



82 



SOCRATES. 



and wlio afterwards reproduced in the ** Apology" the 
words then uttered. It was Plato. 

He begins by reminding his judges that he had not long 
to live in the natural course of events, and that had they 
waited a short time his death would have occurred without 
their agency. Perhaps they think he has been condemned 
because he could make no defence. On the contrary it 
would have been perfectly easy to have said what would 
have pleased them, and procured his acquittal. But he 
would not do it. J^othing unworthy of a free man would 
he say or do. Nor did he now regret the course he had 
taken. Far rather would he make the one defence and die, 
than the other and live. Death is not the greatest evil 
that can befall a man. " The difficulty, Athenians, is 
not to escape from death, but from guilt ; for guilt is 
swifter than death, and runs faster ; and now I, being old 
and slow of foot, have been overtaken by death, the slower 
of the two, but my accusers, who are brisk and active, by 
guilt, the swifter. We separate ; I, sentenced by you to 
death, they, having sentence passed on them by Truth, of 
guilt and injustice. I submit to my punishment, they 
to theirs. 

" When my sons grow up, if they shall seem to desire 
and seek for riches, or any other end, in preference to vir- 
tue, punish them, Athenians, by tormenting them as I 
tormented you. And if they are thought to be something, 
when they are really nothing, reproach them as I have 
reproached you, for not attending to what they ought and 
fancying themselves something when they are good for 
nothing." 

How grand and impressive the closing words. *^ It is 
now time that we depart, I to die, you to live ; but which 
has the better destiny is unknown to all but God." 

He was condemned. The last day of his life was spent in 
conversation with his friends on the immortality of the soul, 
a conversation which forms the subject of Plato's Phaedo. 



SOCRATES. 83 

As the time for drinking the fatal cup approached, his 
friends were deeply moved ; even the officer who came to 
announce the fatal hour was in tears ; but Socrates himself 
with perfect calmness takes the potion, lies down on his 
couch, draws about him, as Caesar at the Capitol, his 
mantle, and falls asleep ; leaving to his friends the bitter- 
ness of irrepressible sorrow, but to future ages and all 
coming time, the admiration of his heroic firmness, his 
commanding virtues, and his immortality of fame. "All 
is human in Socrates while he lives ; " says Eenouvier, 
" all reveals a God in his death " (Philosophic Ancienne). 

§ 2. — Doctrines of Socrates. 

Our sources of information as the doctrines of this 
great teacher are not altogether satisfactory. He left no 
writings. The " Memorabilia " by Xenophon, while of 
great value as biography, is of less value as to matters of 
doctrine ; the question arising, whether the philosophy of 
Socrates was always correctly apprehended by the practical 
and military Xenophon. The writings of Plato, on the 
other hand, are not always available, for precisely an oppo- 
site reason. He was himself a philosopher, and it is diffi- 
cult always to distinguish what is Platonic from what is 
purely Socratic in the dialogues. Aristotle, though scanty, 
is free from the above objection. Probably the most relia- 
ble method would be to compare, and critically examine, 
each of the three writers now named. 

1. As to the general course and drift of the Socratic 
philosophy there can be no reasonable doubt. It was decid- 
edly ethical. This tendency is explained by the previous 
neglect of morals as a science. The ethical element in philos- 
ophy, the higher nature in man, had been sadly overlooked. 
Philosophy had degenerated iuto sophistry, the very founda- 
tions of truth were undermined, the reality and even the 
possibility of all truth, of all certainty and science, had 
been denied. Scepticism was triumphant. Socrates saw 



il IN I'll 



if 

11 



84 



SOCEATES. 



that the only way to pave science itself from destruction 
was to lay hold of this strong eternal element of truth, this 
hitherto neglected element, the moral nature of man, that 
in him which was higher and nobler than the mere physi- 
cal facts and laws of his being and of the material exist- 
ences around him. Hence the predominance of the ethical 
in the teaching of Socrates. It was thus he lifted the eye 
of man to a sublimer height of wisdom and true science, 
while he secured the integrity of truth and th-e possibility 
of human knowledge from being utterly swept away by the 
flood of scepticism. 

It has been supposed by some that Socrates neglected 
everything but ethics. Is this so ? More probably he 
sought to give universality and completeness to science, and 
as physics were already assiduously cultivated, while ethical 
science had been greatly neglected, he would naturally 
devote his attention chiefly to the latter. His objections 
to physical science were rather against the exclusive pursuit 
of that department of knowledge, and still more against the 
confused and unscientific method in which such inquiries 
were, in that age, conducted. So he is represented by Plato. 
The physiology of his age, he complained, looked down- 
ward rather than upward, more to sensible than to divine 
things. It exalted the irrational above the rational. For 
physical science, properly conducted, he had no contempt. 
True, he objected to a profound acquaintance with math- 
ematics. So did Plato also ; and so in modern times have 
many distinguished philosophers. He sought to form in 
himself and others a manly, symmetrical, strong character, 
of universal comprehension, not limited in its range, not 
exclusive in its devotion to any one pursuit, or branch of 
science. This is the grand practical aim of his teaching. 
An exclusive devotion to any one department of knowledge, 
he regards as unworthy of a true man. 

We are not to look upon Socrates, then, as merely a 
moralist. He saw that, in order to establish science against 



SOCKATES. 85 

the attacks of the Sophists, it was necessary to begin anew, 
and lay a foundation which they could not overthrow. 
This he did. He directed his attention, therefore, not to 
this or that special science, but to science in general, its idea, I ^ 

its nature, its conditions, in a word, to metJiod. "Man," 
said Protogoras, " is the measure of all things, and men dif- 
fer. Things are only what they seem to us, and our con- 
ceptions yary ; hence there is no such thing as absolute 
truth. " Man is the measure of all things," says Socrates ; 
" but descend deeper into his personality, and you will find 
that underneath all varieties there is a ground of steady 
truth. Men differ, but men also agree. They differ as to 
what is fleeting and transitory : they agree as to what is 
abiding and eternal. Difference is the region of opinion ; 
agreement, that of truth. Let us endeavor to penetrate 
that region." 

When, accordingly, he affirms that his wisdom is simply 
the knowledge of his own ignorance, he means not merely 
to express a certain contempt for the self-esteem of those 
who were so wise in their own opinion ; much less is it his 
intention to question the possibility of all certain knowl- 
edge ; but rather to express strongly the limited range of 
the human faculties, the limited extent of all human knowl- 
edge, as compared with the unfathomable depth of truth. 
He attached great importance to that Delphic oracle ^' Know 
thy self ^^ — the self-knowledge he sought being the knowl- 
edge of his own nature, the foundation of all true science. 

Insomuch as all scientific thought is inseparably con- 
nected, Socrates attached importance to even trivial sub- 
jects, as not unworthy of careful investigation, since 
connected with all truth by means of whatever truth or 
certainty they contained. Every clear and certain thought 
every established fact, however trivial, is part, therefore, 
of the grand whole, and taken in connection with all others, 
forms the complete and magnificent structure of science. 
He was therefore much occupied with matters which others 



ij) 



86 SOCRATES. 

regarded as beneath their notice, thus fulfilling the prophecy 
of Parmenides, that the young Socrates, when mature, 
would despise nothing as unworthy of examination. 

2. In what manner, now, did he seek to attain this 
comprehensiye, universal knowledge ? In other words, 
what was the Socratic method f Socrates, not content with 
discoyering his own and human ignorance, sought to estab- 
lish a true scientific method. This method was to consider 
everything in conformity to the genus to which it belonged, 
and by the definition of the genus to determine what the 
thing is in itself, or in its essence. The endeavor was to 
apprehend in thought the essence of the thing ; and to 
accomplish this it depended on the definition of terms as 
the grand instrument. This is the very spirit and centre 
of the Platonic philosophy also ; its root and form lie in the 
Socratic method now defined. So Aristotle affirms. There 
are two things, he says, which must in justice be attributed 
to Socrates ; the inductive method of proof, and the general 
definition of ideas, both of which are among the first 
principles of philosophy (Met. xiii. 4 ; so also Xenophon, 
Mem. iv. 5, 12). That is, Socrates was the first to apply 
a right method to philosophic investigation, the first to 
point out the true path which later inquirers followed in 
the search for truth. Hence he has rightly been placed at 
the head of the genuine development of Greek philosophy. 
To search out the what of everything, was the unceasing 
care of Socrates, says Xenophon (Mem. iv. 6, 1). 

Tissot regards the so-called inductive method of Soc- 
rates as more properly analytic, a process of pure generaliza- 
tion. " What is called his induction is nothing else than 
this preliminary operation of grouping around an idea all 
those with which it might be confounded, so as the better to 
distinguish it from them, or to bring to notice what there is 
in common to them all, and so to rise to a higher gener- 
ality. It is, then, a pure generalization " (Histoire de la 
Philosophic). Lewes also denied that the Socratic method 



SOCRATES. 87 

was properly inductive, and regards it as merely a reasoning 
from analogy, a combination of analogous facts — a method 
quite opposed to that of the Novum Organum of Bacon. 
(Hist. Phil. vol. i. p. 151). Grote, on the contrary, in his 
admirable sketch of Socrates, points out the resemblance 
of the Socratic and Baconian methods in spirit and aim 
(Hist. Greece, vol. viii. p. 612). See also Archer Butler, 
Hist. Phil. i. 350). But whether the Socratic method be 
properly called induction, with Aristotle, or generalization, 
with Tissot, or reasoning from analogy, with Lewes, and 
whether it be or be not essentially Baconian in spirit and 
purpose, there can be little doubt as to what the chief pecu- 
liarity of that method really was. Socrates saw that to 
understand a thing in itself it is necessary to grasp its 
essential idea, to make sure of having seized definitely and 
exactly that idea ; and this could be done only by sharply 
and accurately defining it. In order to this he compares 
and contrasts it with all similar ideas, notes the differences 
and resemblances, and having the idea thus clearly before 
the mind, he proceeds to analzye it, separating the individ- 
ual and accidental from the essential, and thus gets at its 
true nature and essence, what it is in itself. The modem 
school of positive philosophy charges him with mistaking 
names for things, in this whole matter, definition of terms 
for description of the thing itself — the prime peculiarity 
and radical defect, it afiBrms, of the Platonic and Aristote- 
lian schools as formed on the Socratic model. Thus Lewes 
(Hist. Phil. vol. i. p. 154). I cannot see the justice of this 
charge. It must be remembered that Socrates had special 
reference in this whole process of investigation, not to 
external nature, but to self-knowledge, the facts and phe- 
nomena of the mind ; and it is difl&cult to see how in any 
other or better manner he could attain that clearness and 
definiteness so essential to all correct thinking, than that 
now described. How could he better apprehend, the 
precise nature of the idea of right, for example, or of truth. 



88 



SOCRATES. 



or justice — the precise nature of any mental state or opera- 
tion — nay, for that matter, the nature of any external 
object as known to the sciences, than by that A^ery process 
above described. Schwegler has well described the So- 
cratic method (Hist. Phil. p. 65). 

3. From this inquiry as to the method of Socrates we 
pass to the general principles of the Socratic ethics. The 
moral end of life is knowledge, the knowledge of the good, 
and of the Eeason that rules over all. All virtue is intelli- 
gence, wisdom ; and as wisdom embraces all the virtues, 
virtue may be called a science, (Aristotle, Mc. Eth. vi. 13). 
No act performed without a clear insight into its nature 
and tendency is morally good ; no act performed with such 
insight is bad. There is no merit in the act unless inten- 
tionally performed as good, and for that reason. 

From this identification of virtue wdth science follows 
the strange, and, as we should now call it, paradoxical 
opinion, that man always does what seems to him to be 
good and right ; for he who knows a thing to be good will 
do it. He may mistake, may be ignorant of the greatest 
good, and so err ; but it will be an error of judgment. 
Not knowingly, not voluntarily, does any man do wrong. 
Nay more, he who should knowingly do any evil thing were 
a better man than he who should do the same thing igno- 
rantly. In other words, he who performs a wrong act, with 
clear insight into its nature and tendency, yet perceiving it 
to be on the whole a good thing for him to do, is wiser and 
more to be commended than he who acts blindly and with- 
out intelligence to guide him. Socrates could not conceive 
of a man's knowing the good, and not doing it. Hence 
Aristotle, A^ery justly as it seems to us, censures him as not 
taking into account, in his estimate of human conduct, the 
sentiments an dpassions of our nature (Mag. Mor. i. 1, 5. 

Socrates teaches clearly and strongly that virtue and 
happiness are inseparably united ; that he only is happy 
who seeks the good of family, friends, and fatherland, and 



SOCRATES. 89 

who learns to goyem body and soul ; in other words, true 
happiness inyolves the whole moral duty of man (Mem. 
ii. 1, § 19, iii. 9 ; iy. 2 ; i. 6). He held that temperance 
and moderation are preferable to sensual enjoyment, since 
the latter is merely the gratification of certain wants, of 
which the fewer, the better, and since it also destroys the 
true freedom of the soul. The true destiny and duty of 
man is to assimilate himself to the diyine by emancipating 
himself from the dominion of his passions. 

In a word, the drift of the Socratic ethics may be 
summed up in this general principle. The chief happiness 
of man consists in knowing the right and doing accord- 
ingly (Mem. iii. 9. 14 ; i. 5 ; iy. 4, 5, 6), the means to 
which are self-knowledge and self-control. Self-goyern- 
ment is the foundation of all the yirtues. 

As to the question what is right and good, aside from 
general principles already indicated, Socrates giyes no spe- 
cific answer, but refers his disciples to the laws of the state 
as a legitimate expression of the general reason and the 
general will, sanctioned by the gods themselyes, who are 
the founders of states. To these he would add the 
unwritten law, and also ^^that inner yoice of Deity which 
speaks to eyery man's conscience, and in obedience to 
which his whole life and energies ought to be directed." 

Schwegler and others haye pronounced Socrates utilita- 
rian in ethics, inasmuch as he appeals for proof of his prop 
ositions to the external adyantages and benefits of yirtue. 
But this is not so. He acknowledges, indeed, the benefits 
of yirtue, but does not rest the obligation to yirtue on that 
ground. The Sophists praise yirtue for the sake of its 
adyantages ; Socrates for the sake of its own intrinsic 
worth. To be " KaXoKayaBog'' is something desirable for its own 
sake ; and therein lies the essence of eyery yirtue. He 
taught that, of all the consequences of our conduct, its 
effects on our o^yn spiritual nature are the most important 
(Mem. i. 6, 9 ; iy. 8, 6). 






90 SOCRATES. 

4. The theology of Socrates next demands our attention. 
Socrates nowhere, as reported to us, speculates upon the 
divine essence or even investigates it. Probably he con- 
sidered it, as in fact it is, beyond human comprehension. 
He was, moreover, attached to the popular mythology and 
unwilling to overthrow it ; hence cautious and prudent in 
his language. He maintains the omniscience, omnipotence, 
and omnipresence of the gods, and that they rule by the 
law of goodness. He counsels Aristodemus, with whom he 
holds an argument on the proof of the divine existence, if 
he would know the wisdom and the love of the gods, to 
render himself worthy of the communication of some of 
those divine secrets which are imparted only to those who 
adore and obey the Deity. " Then shalt thou, my Aristo- 
demus, understand that there is a being whose eye pierceth 
throughout all nature, and whose ear is open to every 
sound ; extended to all places, extending through all time, 
and whose bounty and care can know no other bound than 
those fixed by his own creation " (Mem. i. 4). He taught 
also that we ought not only to forbear what is impious and 
unjust before man, but even when alone ought to have 
regard to all our actions, " since the gods have their eyes 
always upon us, and none of our designs can be concealed 
from them " (Xenophon, Memorabilia, as above). 

The Deity is to Socrates the supreme reason, the source 
of all things, the end of all human endeavors. But as the 
reason is one, deity must have been regarded by him as one, 
in distinction from the pol3rtheism of the age. These 
various elements of the idea of a true God had perhaps a] I 
been separately maintained before, but not combined in 
one with such completeness and purity. " The doctrine of 
a truly intelligent deity," says Eitter, " without dualism, 
without either physical limitation, or pantheistic annihila- 
tion of individuality," had never been taught by any 
philosopher before Socrates (History of Ancient Philoso- 
phy). It has been a matter of much dispute what is to 



SOCRATES. 91 

be understood by the demon of Socrates. The ancient and 
commonly received opinion, is that Socrates believed him- 
self under the direction of a personal tutelar deity or guar- 
dian angel. This however he does not say, and probably 
does not mean ; " but only " dain&vi&v n/' divinum quiddam, 
as Cicero terms it, a something divine. He does not attempt 
to define it ; does not ascribe personality to it ; never calls 
it * daiiMuv ; ' that is merely a blunder of the translators. 
He speaks of it now as a sign, now as a voice (Phsedo, 
p. 242 ; Apol. Soc. p. 31), referring it however to a divine 
source (Xen. Mem. iv. 3, 12, 13). Schleiermacher sup- ! 

poses it a mere intuitive judgment, a presentiment, as, for ; | 

example, of the issue of any undertaking. Others suppose IJ 

it simply the voice of his own conscience. Schwegler ' 

thinks it cannot be explained on psychological grounds, but i 

that there may possibly have been something magnetic | 

about it — a state of ecstasy perhaps. Eitter thinks it was 
originally conscience that was meant, but that afterwards 
he fancied himself under the special guidance of heaven 
(See Butler, Hist. Anc. Phil. vol. i. p. 357, note by the 
editor). 

The immortality of the soul was believed and taught 
by Socrates, though his doctrine is not wholly free from 
indecision and ambiguity. There must be another state of 
existence, in which man shall more successfully pursue the 
end of his being, and in which he shall be free from the 
present impediments ; else life were hardly to be preferred 
to death. The soul is, moreover, of a god-like nature, and 
therefore immortal. The future life is a condition of 
reward (See Cyrop. viii. 7 ; Mem. i. 4, § 8, 9 ; iv. 3, 
§ 14 ; Phaedo, c. 8). 

The following passage (q^uoted also by Eenouvier) from 
the Phaedo of Plato, sets in clear light the Socratic doc- 
trine of the immortality of the soul. It is in the conversa- 
tion at the death of Socrates. *^ No man of sense will 
believe what the myths teach respecting another life ; but 



■ii 



92 SOCRATES. 

that a new sojourn, analogous to that which is promised us, 
awaits the soul truly immortal, is, it seems to me, what we 
may believe. It is necessary, then, that one should venture 
himself upon this thought, and delight himself with this 
hope. Let him take confidence in his soul ; he who has 
renounced as foreign the pleasures of the body, he who has 
loved science, he who has adorned his soul with its true 
beauty — temperance, justice, strength, liberty, truth ; and 
let him hold himself ready for departure from the world, 
against the hour when destiny shall call for him." Such, 
in brief, were the Socratic doctrines. 

They are well summed up by Eitter (Hist. Phil. vol. i. 
p. 75, 76), as also by Tennemann, in his Manuel de THis- 
toire de la Philosophic (see also Schwegler and TJeberweg). 

As to the influence of Socrates on the subsequent course 
of human thought, what shall we say ? '^ The great figure 
of this sage," says Eenouvier, ^' rises not in the midst of 
myths, but pertains all entire to history ; it hovers over it " 
It is not too much to say that not merely the course of 
speculative thought, but the history of human progress in 
the world, from that day to this, the advancement of the 
human soul toward all that is noble and grand in its ideal, 
and its highest aspiration, had been far different had 
Socrates never lived. How noble the spirit that could 
breathe this prayer. ^^ Give me the interior beauty of 
the soul." One may almost sympathize with Erasmus, 
who exclaims, "When I read some things of this sort 
concerning such men, I can scarcely refrain from saying, 
' Sancte Socrate, ora pro nobis.'" 



IMMEDIATE SUCCESSOES OF SOCKATES. 93 



CHAPTER II 

IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS OF SOCRATES. 
§ 1. — The Cyrenaic School. 

After the death of Socrates, his doctrines were held and 
promulgated under various modifications of several distinct 
schools or parties among his disciples. Prom the general 
doctrine of Socrates, that happiness is the chief end of 
man, arose two diverging systems. The one, starting from 
the sensibilities or desires, places happiness in pleasure — 
either that of the present moment and present act merely, 
r)6ovTj, as Aristippus and the Cyrenaics ; or the systematic 
pleasure, which looks to the future, and regards conse- 
quences, as Epicurus. The other system, starting from 
the reason rather than the senses and desires, grounds 
happiness in virtue : either that of action, as Xenophon 
and Plato ; or that of negation and apathy to all pleasure, 
as the Cynics. Each of these schools presents a side of 
Socrates, according to the view that each took of that 
great maBter. 

Among these stands prominent the Cyrenaic. 

The head of this school was Aristippus, a disciple of 
Socrates, but regarded by the stricter Socratists as an 
unworthy pupil of the great master. His doctrines, though 
they diverged widely from those of Socrates, yet are based 
upon his principles ; diverge from his stand-point. 

Aristippus was born at Oyrene in Africa, a colony of 
note and power, but given to luxury. He was of illustrious ,. . 

and wealthy origin, and followed the pleasures which such |p| 

a position and such an age placed in his way. He had 
heard of Socrates, however, and curious to know and hear 
the man, embarked for Athens and became a pupil of the 



94 IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS OF SOCRATES. 

great master, remaining with him till the death of the 
latter, 399 B. c. 

He seems to have remained a man of pleasure, notwith- 
standing the teachings of Socrates on temperance, self- 
denial, etc. ; kept himseK aloof from no corrupting influ- 
ences, but relied on his own self-possession and self-control 
to extricate him from all dangers and dilBficulties ; fre- 
quented the society of disreputable persons ; lived with 
Lais, a celebrated courtesan ; was intimate with Dionysius 
the tyrant, and practically carried out the principle that a 
man ought to control circumstances, not to be controlled 
by them. 

His starting point was Socratic. He began with the 
fundamental tenet of the Socratic school, that the chief 
aim and end of all human life and action is happiness. 
This, however, Socrates would place, not in the gratifica- 
tion of sensual desires and in irrational pleasures, but in. 
self-knowledge, self-control, temperance, virtue, etc., as 
being the true and most exquisite as well as real source of 
happiness to man. On this point Aristippus begins to 
diverge. Happiness is the great aim of man {to ri^g), but 
happiness is pleasure (jydov^). Pleasure is the good. Pain 
is the evil (Cicero de Finibus, ii. 6, 7, 13, 34 ; De Offic. 
iii. 33). Whatever contributes to pleasure is a good thing, 
as wisdom, virtue, friendship — good for that reason only 
(Diog. L. ii. 91, 93 ; Oic. Off. iii. 33) ; whatever interferes 
with it, an evil thing. In order to happiness, the mind 
must retain its independence, indeed, of all other and for- 
eign influences ; must not be enslaved by its passions, etc. 
But this independence may be secured not only in the 
Socratic method, by regulating and controlling one's pleas- 
ures, but also by banishing desire. Only as one is superior 
to hope and fear and desire, is he in the enjoyment of the 
highest pleasure (Diog. Laert. ii. 89, 90). Pleasure is 
good, but not the desire of pleasure ; it is this that subjects 
the soul to hope and fear, and interferes with its enjoyment. 



IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS OF SOCRATES. 95 

A man ought not, then, to desire anything which he is not 
at the moment in possession of, and the wise man will not. 
Such the doctrine ; and the life and character of the man 
corresponded. He was of a serene, happy temperament : 
never allowed himself to want what he did not possess, 
manifested perfect indifference to all good things which 
were not within his reach, gave himself up with ready | 

assent to whatever circumstances happened to surround , i 

him, lived for the present, neither regretting the past nor ■ 

caring for the future ; for the present alone is ours, the | 

past gone, the future uncertain. His maxim seems to | 

have been. Be content with such things as you have, and 
by no means fret thyself on any account. An easy, good- 
natured soul he must have been, and an easy time he must 
have had of it. Of course there could have been no great 
and elevated idea of what man might become or what he 
ought to be, no high moral purpose, no moral unity of j||l|! 

life and purpose. ■ 

The school of Aristippus regarded pleasure and pain as 
something positive ; pleasure was not merely the gratifica- 
tion of a want, not merely the removal of pain, nor was pain 
the absence of a pleasure merely, but both were emotions, '||ij| 

or motions of the soul ; the absence of both is a state of rest 
or sleep, as it were. As to their idea of virtue, it was this : 
all actions in themselves are morally indifferent, the only 
question being as to its result, pleasure or pain. They 
agreed with the Sophists that no action is in itself either 
good or evil, but only as established and regulated by law [ 

and custom (Hiog. Laertus, ii. 98. 99). Yet they main- \ 

tained the general expediency of doing that which is just, ; 

on the ground that m/i^5^iC6 will not pay. Whatever is a I 

means to pleasure, that is virtue in the estimation of this |ijji 

school. 

Pleasure, pain, and entire indifference, or absence of 
either, are the three states of the mind, analogous to gentle 
motion, violent motion, and rest, or to a gentle breeze, a 



96 IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS OF SOCRATES. 



tempest, and a sea-calm. Pleasure is tlie sensation pro- 
duced by gentle motion, pain, that produced by violent 
motion. In order to tlie highest enjoyment of pleasure, 
self-control is necessary, and this art of controlling pleasure 
is to be acquired only by knowledge and culture. The 
pleasure of the moment is not the highest goal. 

Eeason is the regulating principle, the chief element of 
virtue, which teaches how to avoid what might interfere 
with the pursuit of true pleasure. They did not limit 
pleasure to the bodily gratifications merely, but took into 
account the pleasures of the mind, and the spiritual part of 
man, though the former they held to be the stronger of the 
two (Diog. Laert. ii. 89, 90). 

Aristotle reproaches Aristippus with having neglected 
all mathematical learning on the ground that it does not 
treat of the good and the evil, the only things worth know- 
ing. Yet the Oyrenaic school seems to have cultivated 
logic, and even to some extent physics. Aristippus taught 
his doctrines to his daughter, Arete, who instructed her 
son, Aristippus junior. He also taught Antipater, who 
became one of the leaders of the school. Theodorus, the 
the pupil of the younger Aristippus, was another promi- 
nent teacher in the school. It is doubtful if Aristippus the 
elder ever taught public, or published his doctrines. His 
disciples carried out the system to its farthest divergence 
from the Socratic ground. Theodorus, according to Sextus 
Empiricus (adv. Math, vii.), held the entire sitbjectivity of 
our IcnowJedge ; things are sweet, bitter, etc., not in them- 
selves but merely as they so seem to us ; we know nothing 
but our own sensations ; hence there is out of us no crite- 
rion of truth ; the changes, successions, of our own feeling 
are all that we are conscious of, all that we know (Diog. 
Laert. ii. 92 ; Oic. Acad. ii. 46, 142). This is carrying out 
the doctrine of Aristippus, Avho, according to the same 
authority, held that we knew our sensations, but not the 
occasion or source of them, i. e., not the qualities of bodies 
which produce them. 



IMMEDIATE SUCCESSOES OP SOCEATES. 97 

§ 3. — The Cynic School. 

The chief of this school was Antisthenes, of Thracian 
descent by the mother ; pupil in earlier life of Grorgias the 
Sophist, but subsequently pupil of Socrates, at an age when 
his moral and philosophical opinions were already somewhat 
matured. From this and other causes he seems to have 
h.d partially understood the Socratic system, viewing it 
in a one-sided light. He was by nature a one-sided man, 
for nature produces ; such a man of narrow views, and 
of coarse illiberal ; stern, moreover, as such men are apt to 
be, harsh, censorious, yet conceited withal, placing undue 
estimate upon his own superior powers, and cherishing 
a vain desire of the admiration of others. Hence his love 
of exaggeration. It was not till after the death of Socrates 
that he opened a school of his own in the Cynosarges 
(whence the term Cynic), a gymnasium for the Athenians 
of foreign extraction. By his descent he was excluded 
from all participation in politics. He was poor, moreover, 
and he gloried in both these things, as sources of independ- 
ence. He was above the world, that was so far above him. 
Assuming the mendicant's staff and wallet, negligent of 
attire, coarse and slovenly in appearance, he walked his 
round as proud a man, as scornful, as self-sufficient, as 
unamiable and uncomfortable a character as one could find 
in all Athens — a genuine radical reformer, ready to quarrel 
with society and with anybody that came in his way. The 
age was one of increasing luxury and civilization. Athens 
was fast coming to be a pleasure-loving city. Antisthenes, in 
the true spirit of an anti, set himself against all this. He ||i 

must forsooth bring men back to the primitive simplicity 
in dress, manners, etc. So, hke a wise fool, but a true 
a7iti, as he was, he goes over to the oj)posite extreme, and 
seeks to correct an amiable fault, a pardonable sin, by 
committing himself an unpardonable one. Here you have 
the cynic, the man Antisthenes, as contemporaries have 



98 IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS OF SOCRATES. 



drawn him, and as his own life and doctrines show him — 
true type of a class of men to be found in every progressive 
age, and of a spirit which never has been, perhaps never 
will be, quite extinct in this world. 

Annoyed at the little success with which his school met, 
he broke up the concern and drove away the few scholars 
that lingered about his doors ; for an original character, 
however unamiable, will always have some followers and 
admirers. One only remained, Diogenes of Sinope, too 
much like his master to he driven away ; so a compromise 
was effected, and the two kindred spirits remained in 
company, like master like pupil, till the death of the 
former. Which was the more unlikely character it would 
hard to say. 

The doctrines of Antisthenes seem to be little more than 
this one idea — stern, determined resistance to all luxury 
and effeminacy, absolute resistance to all indulgence and 
all pleasure. In this was virtue. This was morals. The 
very name of pleasure seems to have filled his righteous 
soul with horror. "Pain, labor, even injury, is a good. 
Pleasure, on the contrary, an evil." " I had rather go mad 
than experience pleasure ; " so Diogenes Laertius (vi. 3) 
makes him say. Poor man, he had his choice ; pleasure cer- 
tainly he could have had but little experience of ; mad he 
certainly did go. He formed a theory on the subject, in 
which he endeavors to maintain that there is no sucli thing 
in fact as pleasure, what we call pleasure being only the 
limitation of pain. 

It is possible to put a more favorable construction, how- 
ever, upon this, doctrine, by supposing that he meant by 
pleasure only sensual gratification, while by labor and pain 
he intended those manly struggles by which the soul attains 
true intellectual wealth, and pleasure, and freedom, and 
becomes great in action. If this were his meaning, it is 
easy to see how he was merely carrying out, though intern- 



IMMEDIATE SUCCESSOES OF SOCEATES. 99 

perately and to extremes, tlie true Socratic doctrine of 
temperance and self-denial. 

According to this view, the philosophy of this school 
amounts simply to this principle : Live in the simplest and 
most natural way, in order, like the Deity, who wants noth- 
ing, to lead the happiest life of which man is capable. Thus 
Socrates said : "To want nothing is God-like ; to want 
the least possible is most nearly to resemble God" 
(Xen. Mem. i. 6, 10). 

Virtue, according to Antisthenes, is the true supreme 
good (Diog. L. vi. 103, 104) ; everything which stands 
between it and vice is indifferent, such things as wealth, 
poverty, honor, birth, and the like, matters of no mo- 
ment. Virtue consists in action, and must have reason 
for its basis and ground-work, its true root and essence. 
^^ Man must have reason or a halter" is his pointed and 
bitter expression. What is this virtue ? An insight into 
the good ; something which he cannot further explain 
than that. 

His system was a purely selfish and morose one. He 
isolates man entirely within himseK, makes him sufficient 
for himself. Affection, love of kindred, are of no moral 
worth ; civil institutions are contemptible ;, love of country, 
ridiculous. Marriage has no further value or sacredness 
than as it relates to the propagation of the species. Inso- 
lent, proud, overbearing, shameless men, were the sages of 
this school. 

As to other matters, Antisthenes held that the Socratic 
method of arriving at truth by definitions is not of much 
use, since the essence of a thing cannot be expressed in or 
learned by a definition, but only by intuition (Aristotle, 
Met. V. 29 ; viii. 3). 

Science he cultivated to some extent. He wrote a work 
on physics ; and shows in his writings, which are numer- 
ous, a good acquaintance with logic. In his old age, and 
increasing moroseness, he seems to have regretted his own 



100 IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS OF SOCRATES. 

literary labors, speaks depreciatingly of science, and comes 
to the conclusion that nothing is of use but virtue, not 
even the ability to read and write. 

Socrates well understood the man, and thus keenly 
rebuked his pride. " I see your vanity, Antisthenes, peer- 
ing through the holes in your cloak." The cloak was his 
only garment. Being told that many persons praised him, 
he said, ^' Have I done anything wrong then, that I am 
praised ? " 

Diogenes of Sinope, he of the tub, is the natural result 
and termination of this system. This man outraged all 
decency ; filthy in person, vulgar and degraded in habits 
and manners. When Plato on one occasion gave an enter- 
tainment, Diogenes burst in, uninvited, and stamping on 
the carpets with dirty feet exclaimed, ^' Thus I trample 
on the pride of Plato ! " " With greater pride ! " was the 
admirable rejoinder. He died at ninety, of eating a raw 
neat's foot I 

§ 3. — Megahic School. 

Most of the disciples of Socrates, after his death, retired 
to Megari, to escape the popular excitement against the 
friends of the illustrious martyi*. This was the abode of 
Euclid, one of the oldest of the disciples of Socrates (Diog. 
Laert. ii. 106) ; and about him naturally clustered the 
outlawed band. After a time the little society, no longer 
held together by the common bond, the influence of the 
great master, and differing among themselves in many 
things, broke up ; a few only remaining with Euclid, who 
thus became the leader of a school, called, from the place, 
the Megaric. 

It is related of this man that so great was his admira- 
tion of Socrates, and his desire to profit by his instructions, 
that disregarding the law which forbade any citizen of 
Megari from visiting Athens on pain of death — such was 
the feud between the two cities — he used to travel the dis- 



IMMEDIATE SUCCESSOES OF SOCRATES. 101 

tance, twenty miles, on foot, by night, in order to escape 
detection, and was rewarded by an interview with the 
great master ; after which, in like manner he returned, 
meditating on the truths he had heard. Knowledge thus 
hardly acquired we may well suppose to have been of value 
to him. 

He seems to have been present at the death of Socrates 
(Phgedo, p. 59). 

Though a disciple of Socrates, Euclid seems to have 
been partial to the Eleatic system and to have made that 
the basis on which he erected his philosophical structure. 
He is represented as mild and conciliating in disposition, 
moderate in character and conduct, but fond of subtle 
disputation and sophistic distinctions. His doctrines were 
Eleatic, modified by. the Socratic. They partook of 
the moral element and the scientific cast of the latter school. 
*' The one " can be known only by reason, not by the 
senses, and is unaUeroMe. This only one is ''the good," 
known under other names as, reason, intelligence, wisdom, 
God, etc. By this '' one," they seem not to have intended 
an ontological unity, a being, so much as an abstract con- 
ception — ^being in general. The distinctive character of 
true morality, as of true being, lies in its oneness, unity, 
or identity. 

The system assumes a strongly negative character. In 
refuting an opponent, Euclid does not attack the premises 
but drives right at the conclusion. Of course his method 
is indirect, nor does he admit the validity of definitions, nor 
even of comparisons ; for these must be either of like to like 
or to unlike ; in the first case, it were better to speak of 
the object itself ; in the latter, comparison must mislead. 
Sophisms and fallacies play a conspicuous part in the later 
history of this school, employed as convenient instruments 
of refuting opponents and of showing the vain pretensions 
of superficial thinkers. 

Several of these fallacies are ascribed particularly to 



iii 



H 



102 IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS OF SOCRATES. 



Eitlulides, though not invented by him, but by the Soph- 
ists, as, e. g.y the somewhat noted sophisms termed the Liar, 
the Sorites, the Horn, the Bald-head, etc. These were 
employed, perhaj)S, merely to show the necessity of care 
and skill in the employment of even scientific terms, per- 
haps as means of posing arrogant pretenders, probably how- 
ever with the further and laudable purpose of casting a 
doubt upon all acquired knowledge — for it was a maxim 
with the Sophists that to learn what we do not know is 
impossible. Thus the sophism of the liar^ which is thus 
stated by Cicero. If you say that you lie and say truly, 
you lie ; but you say that you lie, and you speak the truth ; 
you lie therefore. Another of the sophisms has reference 
to the fact that you may meet a disguised person without 
recognizing him, in which case, though you know the per- 
son, ever so well, yet you do not know him. 

Diodorus Chronos seems to have figured somewhat con- 
spicuously in this method of reasoning. His favorite 
doctrine was that nothing is possible, except that which is 
necessary. This, as Aristotle says, leads naturally to the 
denial of all motion and generation ; it attacks the contin- 
gent, the visible phenomenal order of things, making 
against the senses and all sense, and knowledge. His 
arguments to show that motion is impossible are quite 
ingenious. For instance he contends that if a body con- 
sists of several parts, the motion must begin with one and 
be communicated to the others. Suppose, then, two out of 
three parts to be already set in motion, but not as yet the 
third ; we must conclude that the body as a whole is in 
motion, since the greater part of it is so ; the moved portions 
preponderate ; suppose now another, a fourth part, be added, 
which is unmoved ; the body still moves, for the one part 
last added to the body which was moving cannot destroy 
the preponderance of the moved parts, it is only one to 
three, the body moves, then, that is the whole four ; add on 
now to your heart's content, you get by and by a body of 



PLATO. 103 

ten thousand parts, only two of which are actually in motion 
yet the whole body is so. Is this absurd ? then it is im- 
joossible to show that a body is in motion in its preponder- 
ating parts, and of course, then, impossible to show that in 
its totality it moves, since the majority of parts must moye 
before the luliole can stir. 

By a little artifice he demonstrates the impossibility of 
change, as shown in case of a wall. If that wall is ever to 
cease to be a wall, it must be either while the stones of it 
are together, or when they have been separated, but while 
they are together the wall continues, after they have been 
separated the wall does not cease to be, for it is then 
already in pieces and has no further clmnge to undergo. 
When did it cease, then, in the name of reason ? IN'ever, 
and never will, is the imphed answer ; your senses alto- 
gether mystify and deceive you in this whole matter of 
material existences and the changes to which they appear 
to be subject. 

Stilpo was a later disciple of this Megaric school, and a 
philosopher of some note. But his doctrines present noth- 
ing of special importance in distinction from those of the 
school generally. 



CHAPTEH III. 

PLATO. 

In treating of the philosophy of this most distinguished 
disciple of Socrates, it wiU be convenient to speak first of 
his life and character ; second, of his method ; third, of his 
psychology ; fourth, of his theology ; fifth, of his ethics and 
politics ; sixth and lastly, of his physics. Abundant mate- 
rials are at hand for such investigation ; first of all, his own 
philosophic writings, chiefiy dialogues, then commentaries 
almost innumerable on these by scholars and critics of aU 



104 



PLATO. 



ages since Plato's day, and of almost all nations of tlie civ- 
ilized world. On no one writer of antiquity, perhaps, has 
so much been written by subsequent writers as on Plato. 
Many of these writers, it must be confessed, had but a 
a limited knowledge of the original works, for of all ancient 
authors, Plato is probably the most difi&cult to be intelli- 
gently read and the least likely to be completely and thor- 
oughly perused. 

§ 1.— Life and Chaeacter of Plato.* 

Born about 429 b. c, about the time of the Pelopon- 
nesian war and of the death of Pericles ; a most active 
and brilliant period of Grecian history. His family was 
of noble descent, connected on the maternal side with 
Solon. His real name was Aristocles, surnamed Plato, or 
the broad-browed (Diog. Laert. 3. 4). Fable relates that 
he was the child of Apollo, and his mother a virgin (Plu- 
tarch, Symposium viii. 1). However that may be, he was 
unquestionably connected with the most illustrious families 
of Athens, and hence had many opportunities for superior 
education and for a career as a statesman had he chosen ; 
but from this he was deterred by weakness of voice, which 
unfitted him for public speaking, and also by his turn of 
mind. He seems to have divided his early efforts and 
enthusiam between poetry and philosophy. Wrote epics, 
lyrics, etc., not so much, as Eitter well conjectures, 
because of any true poetic genius, but because of a vague 
longing to express that which was in him, the reflections of 
his own mind, coupled with a profound study of the crea- 
tions of earlier genius. It was not till he became ac- 
quainted with Socrates, in his twentieth year, that his mind 
took altogether a j)hilosophical direction, and he abandoned 
poetry (Val. Max. 1. 6. ^lian. Yar. Hist. 10, 21). From 
this time till the death of Socrates he remained with the 

* Tenneman's Life of Plato ; Biblioth. der Alten Lit. ; Vit. Plat.; 
Ritter, Hist. Phil. 



PLATO. 105 

great master, a disciple not of him alone, however, but of 
all ancient philosophy. After the death of Socrates, tradi- 
tion makes Plato travel and reside for many years in 
foreign countries, in Egypt, Phoenicia, Babylonia, Assyida, 
etc. To Egypt he probably did go ; perhaps to other 
countries. "Whilst studious youth," says Valerius Maxi- 
mus, "were crowding to Athens from every quarter in 
search of Plato for their master, that philosopher was wan- 
dering along the winding banks of the Nile, or the vast 
plains of a barbarous coun fcry, himself a disciple to the old 
men of Egypt." 

On his return, he opened a school for gratuitous instruc- 
tion in his favorite science. The place was one fitted 
rather for the poet or the artist than the severe dialectician. 
The beautiful grove of Academus, in the highly wrought 
description of Lewes, " was pla^nted with lofty plane-trees, 
and adorned with temples and statues ; a gentle stream 
rolled through it, with 

" A sound as of a hidden brook 
In the leafy month of June, 
Which to the sleeping woods all night 
Singeth a quiet tune." 

It was a delicious retreat, " for contemplation framed. 
The longing thoughts of posterity have often hovered 
round it and made it the centre of mingled associations. 
Poets have sung of it. Philosophers have sighed for it." 

'Not did the beauties and graces pertain entirely to the 
place where the exercises were conducted, for whatever 
poetry there may have been in the grove, the lectures and 
discussions of the Academy proper, while of the highest 
order of thought and requiring hard thinking in the 
hearer, yet were clothed in the most poetic and imagina- 
tive diction. Such was the renown of the master that 
there was no lack of hearers and disciples. His school 
was frequented by many of the higher classes. His pupils 
were among the most distinguished. Women even, it is 
5* 



106 PLATO. 

said, attended his teachings. They were probably of that 
class which, at that period of Grecian history, combined 
the highest mental cultivation and the highest personal 
accomplishments with not the strictest ideas of yirtue. 

Plato visited Sicily in his fortieth year, to see ^tna. 
There he saw, however, the tyrant Dionysius, whom he 
so offended by his plainness of speech that the monarch 
sought the life of the philosopher, and the latter escaped 
death only to be sold as a slave. He was purchased by a 
Cyrenian, who immediately set him free. Without j)rose- 
cuting further his studies upon volcanoes, tyrants, and 
other Sicilian curiosities, Plato seems to have made the 
best of his way home and contented himself thenceforth for 
the most part with the safer investigations of the Academy. 
Twice, however, afterwards he visited Syracuse, to confer 
with Dionysius the Second. Actively employed in philo- 
sophical composition, death overtook him in a peaceful and 
tranquil old age, 346 b. c, aet. 83. 

Against the character of Plato malice has found little 
to say or insinuate. His enemies reproach him, but without 
ground (Diog. L. iii. 26). He seems to have been eminently 
a moral, blameless, just man, given chiefly to abstraction 
and severe thought ; little to pleasure, little to the prac- 
tical matters of life. He has been accused of plagiarism ! 
What will become of the rest of us, if a mind as rich as 
Plato's is liable to this charge ? He is accused of haughty 
and overweening self-esteem. Not unlikely. Where was 
ever the truly great and noble mind, towering above its com- 
peers and all its time, that was not somehow self-conscious 
of superiority. He attacked, it is true, with some bitter- 
ness, the philosophical opinions of certain contemporary 
teachers, but not till they had as violently assailed him. 
It is said that his school was not, like that of Socrates, 
aimed at the salvation of the country, through reformation 
of the manners and morals of the age, but that it neglected 
this high aim. True, Plato did not, like Socrates, make 



PLATO. 107 

MmseK a martyr to yirtne ; nor did he so directly and 
resolutely assail the yices of the age. He probably saw 
the inevitable drift of things, and that it would be useless 
to think of renoyating a country and an age so corrupt. 
But he did present to the mind a high and noble aim, and 
sought to elevate those within his reach and sphere to a 
loftier style of thinking, feeling, and acting. His school 
was doubtless one of culture and refinement as compared 
with the Socratic. In place of the pristine severity, there 
was ornament, splendor of thought and diction, a true 
refinement, and severely cultivated but exquisite taste. 
That it was lacking in the sterner and more essential qual- 
ities of excellence has never been shown. 

^"^ Plato," says Lewes, "was intensely melancholy. 
That gTcat broad brow, which gave him his surname, was 
wrinkled and sombre. Those brawny shoulders were bent 
with thought, as only those of thinkers are bent. A smile 
was the utmost that ever played over his lips ; he never 
laughed. ^As sad as Plato,' became a phrase with the 
comic dramatists. He had many admirers ; scarcely any 
friends. In Plato, the thinker predominated over the 
man. That great expansive intellect had so fixed itseK 
upon the absorbing questions of philosophy, that it had 
scarcely any sympathy left for other matters. Hence 
his constant reprobation of poets. . . He had a feel- 
ing not unallied to contempt for them, because he saw in 
them some resemblance to the Sophists — an indifference 
to truth and a preference for the arts of expression. . . 
His soul panted for truth. Poets, at the best, he held to be 
only inspired madmen, unconscious of what fell from their 
lips. . . There is something unpleasant in Plato's char- 
acter, which finds its echo in his works. He was a great, 
but not an amiable man. His works are gi'eat, but lament- 
ably deficient. His ethics are the ethics of a logician, not 
of a large-souled man familiar with and sympathizing with 



108 PLATO. 

the complexities of life ; they are suited only to an impossi- 
ble state of humanity. " 

This iS;, perhaps, a severe judgment of Plato's character.; 
but it contains an element of truth. Plato may very prob- 
ably have been but a poor companion and friend. He was 
too much absorded in his own contemplations. He was too 
far above all his contemporaries. He was, not unlikely, a 
sad and melancholy, man ; for what great soul is not so ? 
Like the wind, like the ocean, the great soul murmurs to 
to itself a low, sad, mighty strain, heedless of passing inci- 
dents. If Plato had little in common with humanity, it 
was because humanity was so far below him. 

What, now, was the eifect and influence of this man 
upon his time and the world ? ^' The influence of Plato," 
says Eitter (Hist. Phil.), -^must be estimated not so much 
by its effect upon his contemporaries, as upon posterity and 
ourselves. This influence has been wrought principally by 
his writings. It rarely happens that a great thinker is 
rightly and fully understood by those who receive his inspi- 
rations directly from his own lips ; time is requisite for a 
due and rightful appreciation of their import. All pos- 
terity gathers around Tiwi as Ids scJiolars, in the same 
manner as he had applied himself to all antiquity as his 
teacher. As to Plato, the ancients have, with great care and 
often in an envious spirit, explored the sources from which 
he might have derived the system of his philosophy, or his 
artifice of language. We are told by his great disciple 
Aristotle that he had diligently studied the doctrines of 
Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Socrates ; he might have added 
of Parmenides and Anaxagoras, for of Plato it may justly 
be said that he reduced into a beautiful whole the scattered 
results of the earlier G-reek philosophies, reconciling their 
seeming differences and conflicting tendencies. From this 
fountain, as well as from the abundant sources of his own 
good powers, flowed the rich elements of his philosophy. 
In fact, where we compare the barrenness of the earlier 



PLATO. 109 

philosopliers with the fertility of Plato, that love, which 
Plato knows so well how to inspire in us, warms almost to 
veneration : so rich, so varied, and so abundant are his 
observations, and so profound his knowledge of man and 
the world ! " 

§ 3. — Method of Plato. 

Was he a sceptic or a dogmatist ? Was he a mere 
expounder of Socratic doctrines, or himself the founder of a 
school ? As to the first of these questions, the ancients are 
divided, some regarding him as a sceptic, others as a posi- 
tive teacher. Cicero says, ^' Plato affirms nothing, but, 
after producing many arguments, and examining a ques- 
tion on every side, leaves it undetermined." This is true, 
doubtless, of some of the writings of Plato, those which are 
intended as mere exercises of dialectic skill, but by no 
means of his more important dialogues. Plato ivas no 
sceptic. Yet he doubtless did attach more importance to 
the metliod of investigating truth than to the results of that 
investigation ; doubted the certainty of those results, and 
of his own knowledge as regards the higher elements and 
objects of thought ; exjDressed himself usually with reserve 
as to the definite objects of knowledge ; sought truth with- 
out professing to have arrived at certain apprehension of it. 
In all this he followed Socrates. But he was not a mere 
expounder of the Socratic doctrine. He enlarged the 
boundaries of the Socratic philosophy, and added to it new 
elements and instruments of great power. He brought 
into the sphere of philosophical investigation whatever was 
truly valuable in the researches and results of preceding 
thinkers, gathering from the Pythagorean, the Eleatic, 
even the ancient Ionian, valuable and needful materials 
for the symmetrical and complete structure of the temple 
of truth. He was not so much a creator as a composer ; a 
critic, an eclectic, rather than a dogmatist ; an architect and 
skilful builder of materials already elaborated. " He was," 
says Lewes, '^ the culminating point of Greek "Dhilosophy." 



Li ::L L 



I 



110 PLATO. 

What, then, was the Platonic 7netliod9 Socrates had 
rehed on induction and definition. Definition was with 
him the basis of all science. To know what a thing is, you 
must also know what it is not. But in arriving at his 
definitions Socrates proceeded by a purely inductiye or 
analogical process. Plato gaye exactness and a scientific 
form to this part of the process of investigating truth, by 
adding the new and more eflScient instruments of analysis 
and synthesis. Analysis, the decomposition of a thing 
into its component parts, the study of those parts, the idea 
of the whole thus acquired, the seeing the one in the many, 
— this process Plato was the first to introduce into science. 
(The process of this dialectical procedure is described in 
Phaedrus, 265 seq,). Would you know what virtue is ? 
Eesolve the term into all the separate virtues, build up all 
these again into one, and you have virtue ; you know what 
it means, you have a definition of it or a knowledge of its 
essence (Rep. vii. 534). The definitions of Plato relate to 
general and abstract ideas, for these alone are capable of 
definition ; these alone are permanent, while the individual 
thing is transitory, phenomenal, not the subject of science 
at all. Science has nothing to do with individuals, but 
only with general terms, or classes, abstract ideas. These, 
according to Plato, stand for the only real existences, the 
only proper objects of science. 

Plato is generally represented to have been a Realist 
and not a ]N"ominalist. He gives to his general terms, as 
Socrates did not, a distinct and separate existence," says 
Aristotle, and called them ideas. This, however, is stren- 
uously denied by Butler (Anc. Phil. ii. 16. seq,). Lewes 
has well stated in brief the summary of the Platonic 
method. "His great dogma was the necessity of an 
untiring investigation into general terms (or abstract 
ideas). He did not look on life with the temporary inter- 
est of a passing inhabitant of the world. He looked on it 
as an immortal soul longing to be released from its earthly 



PLATO. Ill 

prison, and striying to catch by anticipation some faint 
glimpses of that region of eternal truth where it would some 
day rest. The j&eeting phenomena of this world he knew 
were nothing more. But he was too wise to overlook them. 
Meeting and imperfect as they were, they were the indica- 
tions of that eternal Truth for which he longed, footmarks 
on the perilous journey, and guides unto the wished-for 
goal. Long before him, wise and meditative men perceived 
that sense-knowledge would only be knowledge of phenom- 
ena ; that everything men call existence was but a per- 
petual flux — a something which, always becoming, never 
was ; that the reports which our senses made of these things 
partook of the same fleeting and uncertain character. He 
could not, therefore, put his trust in them ; he could not 
believe that Time was anything more than the wavering 
image of Eternity. 

"But he was not a sceptic. These transitory phenom- 
ena were not true existences ; but they were images of true 
existences. Interrogate them ; classify them ; discover 
what qualities they have in common ; discover that which 
is invariable, necessary, amidst all that is variable, contin- 
gent ; discover The One in The Many, and you have pen- 
etrated the secret of Existence " (Hist. Phil. i. 210, 11). 

§ 3.— Plato's Division of Philosophy. 

Before treating of psychology in particular, it is neces- 
sary first to inquire into Plato's general view of philosophy, 
and his division of it. 

Philosophy Plato divides into Logic, Physics, and Ethics 
(so Cic. Acad. Post. i. 5, 19 ; Sext. Emp. adv. Math, 
vii. 16), as comprising the various departments of human 
knowledge. There is among the many different sciences 
one, whose office is that of regulator of the others, to 
determine the value of each special science. This, the 
science of all other sciences, he terms dialectic, or logic. It 
embraces all, gives unity to all, and no particular science 



112 



PLATO. 



is of any further value than as ifc contributes to advance 
the soul in this all-comprehensive science. Mathematics, 
astronomy, etc., are like sportsmen who seize whatever 
prey comes to hand, without even the ability to make any 
use of it. Dialectic teaches the true use and value of all 
such acquisitions. It is the "self-consciousness of the 
reason, the conviction it has of itself. This first gives to 
life its intellectual energy, by affording a definite end to 
whatever the soul enters upon and accomplishes, while it 
contemplates the supreme truth, the true good of the soul, 
of all things." This perfect science is difficult to attain, 
indeed can never be fully attained by man, for everything 
in him is perpetual change, his very science is fluctuating 
and never the same; imperfect therefore. The object of the 
one true science is eternal truth, the unchangeable, unborn, 
imperishable ; that which ^5, that which we call God, and 
which is possible, Icnoivable, only to God. Nevertheless this 
absolute and perfect science, though above human reach, 
is yet the true ideal at which the soul of man should ever 
aim ; the province and privilege of the rational and truly 
intelligent mind. This, then, is the basis of the Platonic 
idea of true science or pure philosophy, viz., that science 
which from its high vantage ground overlooks and reviews 
all others ; embraces all others within itself ; determines the 
value and true end of each — the science which is " cogni- 
zant of all notions in their respective differences and affini- 
ties, and whose object is being in general " ; the science 
which orders and disposes all things, can discourse of all 
things, presides over every thought and every utterance, real 
only as existing in Deity, but the grand ideal of the excellence 
and endeavor — divine philosophy. He refuses the name of 
science to all other arts and branches of knowledge, how- 
ever accurate, as mathematics and its application to music 
and astronomy, in comparison with this ideal, this one 
grand true science of them all. 

In order to reach toward this, a feeling of desire is need- 



PLATO. 



113 



ful, a consciousness of our own ignorance. Curiosity comes 
in also, and a feeling of wonder Plato calls the first step 
toward philosophy ; wonder, that is, at the uncertainty of 
our present knowledge and the vagueness even of right 
opinions. 

'No mental tendency or development, in his view, was 
legitimate and right which did not contain in itself the 
germ of this lofty ideal, of this science par excellence ; this 
highest development of human consciousness. 

Plato distinguishes between opinion and science. Eight 
opinion is a transition to philosophy, but is not itself 
science. Even mathematical science, geometry, astronomy, 
music, in so far as grounded on abstract truth, and so immut- 
able, are only so many means of forming the soul to 
philosophy; helps and necessary steps to it (Eep. vii. 526, vi. 
510) ; they are more certain than mere opinion, right opin- 
ion, intermediate between it and philosophy (Eep. vii. 533). 
But they are not themselves philosophy ; for they proceed 
upon the assumption of certain primary notions, and give 
no account oi principles — a method quite unscientific ; they 
employ, moreover, visible figures for illustration, yet do 
not really treat of them, but only of what the mind alone 
perceives. Hence Plato refuses them the name of science, 
and calls them dtavota, cognition, something clearer than 
opinion, but less clear than science. 

To this one lofty and only real science Plato applies the 
term dialectic, meaning by it the true and pure philosophy. 
By dialectic, the ancients usually meant the same thing as 
logic in its widest signification. 

Plato makes a similar use of it. Dialectic, or logic, 
being with him (Soph. p. 253 ; Phaedrus, 266) essentially 
the art of right thinking and right speaking, language and 
thought being identical, except that the latter is a dialogue 
in the soul without sound, the former is vocal or uttered. 
His logic> then, is the science of tliougM and leing (Phile- 
bus, p. 57), in so far as these are eternal and immutaUe. 






"N 



114 PLATO. 

Combining with this physics and ethics, two subordinate 
sciences, philosophy is complete. 

§ 4, — Plato's Psychology. 

We are ready now to proceed with the inquiry as to 
Plato's psychology. The soul, according to Plato, is of a 
twofold nature, or rather we have two souls, the rational 
and the sensitive ; the latter regards phenomena, the former 
deals with and is percipient of the noumena, dwells in the 
region of pure ideas (Phaedo, 25 ; Phaedr. p. 247). Each 
completes the other, and both together make the complete 
soul. Sensation is the result of the union of the soul with 
the body, the sentient and the sensible — the union of the 
same with the other. Beside sense and reason there is a third 
principle, as bond of union to the two, i. e., the spirit or 
active principle, emotion ; this is inferior to reason but 
superior to sense. These three potentates rule the soul — 
appetite, spirit, reason — like the three divisions of plant, 
animal, and man in nature. The soul has existence in a 
previous state (Meno, p. 81), is indeed an eternal, imperisha- 
ble existence (Phaedrus, p. 245 ; Tim. p. 41 ; Phaedo, 62- 
107). In that previous state it dwells in the region of celes- 
tial truth, travels with the gods, beholds and is conversant 
with real existences, self-existences, not mere phenomena.* 
If, however, it fail of reaching the necessary height and 
perceiving these realities, if its wings are clogged and 
weighed down by vice, it loses its primitive state, loses its 
wings, falls to the earth, enters and animates some cor- 
poreal body, and the person thus animated becomes a lover 
of wisdom and beauty, or a monarch, or statesman, or artist, 
or poet, or sophist, or prophet and religious teacher, accord- 
ing to the nature and rank of the preexistent soul. They 
who conduct wisely in these different circumstances will 
next time obtain a more eligible lot. The soul never 

* On this supposition of preexistence, see beautiful passage in 
Butler (Anc. Phil. vol. ii. p. 229 aeq). 



PLATO. 



115 



regains its pristine state, in less than 10,000 years ; its 
wings requiring that time for growth. At the end of its 
first mortal life, it is judged, sentenced, and either sent for 
punishment under the earth, or rewarded in heaven. At 
the end of a thousand years it is called hack, to choose hy 
lot a new life. This time it may pass into the body of 
a woman, a bird, a beast, or a fish, according to its intelli- 
gence and yirtue, or the soul of a beast, if once human, 
may now pass again into the human body. Thus it 
changes each thousandth year, till the decade is complete 
and its pristine state regained, if it ever . is to be. The 
souls, however, of those who diligently seek wisdom and 
philosophy with sincerity, if they thrice successively 
choose this kind of life, in the three thousandth year 
regain their wings and are off. The soul in its mundane 
existence has many ideas of a higher and purer order than 
those of sense, ideas of things according to their kinds 
which are the combination of many perceptions into one by 
the reason. These ideas are reminiscences of its former 
state, when it was with the gods and beheld self-existent 
truth (Phaedo, 74, 5 ; Phsedrus, 249). This differs widely 
from sense-knowledge. Sense-knowledge is vague and uncer- 
tain : it is the knowledge of that which is never permanent 
and certain, but always in a flux, always tecoming, never 
leing. Were it not for our recollections of our previous 
state, the soul would apprehend only the 'becoming, the 
changeable, the sense-world, never the real and the true. 
"It is as if in our youth," says Lewes, "we had listened 
to some mighty orator whose printed speech we are reading 
in old age. That printed page how poor and faint a 
copy of that thrilling eloquence I And yet that printed 
page in some dim way recalls those tones, recalls that face, 
and stirs us somewhat as we then were stirred. Long years 
and many avocations have somewhat effaced the impression 
he first made, but the printed words serve faintly to recall 
it. Thus it is with our immortal souls. They have 



f ^ 



116 PLATO. 

sojourned in that celestial region where the voice of truth 
rings clearly, where the aspect of truth is unyeiled, 
undimmed. They are now sojourning in this fleeting, 
flowing river of life. Stung with resistless longings for 
the skies, and solaced only by the reminiscences of that 
former state, which these fleeting, broken, incoherent 
images of ideas awaken in them." * 

What say we, now, of this doctrine ; the soul's jpre- 
existence, its reminiscence of that former knowledge ? 
Beautiful it certainly is, nay more, sublime. It explains 
some things not otherwise resolvable. But is it true ? 
Not more improbable a priori than its future existence after 
death, says Archer Butler. Who Tcnows but it may be 
true ? Who will say positively it is not ? What is soul ? 
Whence comes it ? Who can tell ? 

§ 5. — The Platonic "Ideas." 

In order to understand Plato's system it is necessary to 
know what he meant by the term so much employed, so 
fundamental to his philosophy, yet so much disputed, and 
after all so uncertain in its meaning — the term Idea.\ 
Whatever it means, it lies at the basis of the Platonic phi- 
losophy, and even gives it its most appropriate name — ^the 
Ideal philosophy. Greek philosophy and Greek art, it has 
been well said, were eminently objective ; their tendency 
was to transform the mind's conceptions into perceptions ; 
to project its ideas out of itself, and then to look at them 
as images, as entities. This is characteristic of Plato's 
philosophy. He was, in this sense at least, a Eealist. Our 
general conceptions were, with him, the images or represent- 
atives of eternal realities ; our abstract universal notions, 
no lions of m«7^asagenus distinct; from all individual men ; 
of virtue in general, apart from the specific virtues — these 

* Vol. i. p. 323. 

f For a clear and admirable statement of tlie Platonic doctrine 
of Ideas, see Butler's Hist. Phil. ii. p. 113, 113. 



PLATO. 117 

genera, these universals — were with him not mere concep- 
tions of the mind but represent real existences, entities ; 
which entities he call Ideas, Not only were these "Ideas" 
existences, but the only real existences, the noumena, of 
which all individual things were the phenomena. 

" Thus the object of Plato," says Butler, " was to trace 
all that was offered by the senses throughout this wondrous 
world down to its root in a deeper and inyisible world." 
It is in these ideas that science seeks to seize the essence of 
things, to exhibit what everything is, in and by itself, or 
absolutely. These ideas are themselves unchangeable, 
always maintaining one and the same character. All else 
that exists beside ideas has reality only so far as it ^partici" 
pates in them. It is by participation in these ideas, that 
things are what they are, for all is formed out of ideas, and 
numbers are to them as copies to originals. The word is 
not limited to species and genera and similar abstract and 
universal terms, but comprehends every sort of true being, 
not merely the most perfect, the beautiful, the good, etc., 
but the base and vicious even. There are ideas, also, of 
the one and the many, the great and the small, health and 
strength, speed and slowness ; of unity, of the sphere by 
itself, the circle by itself, of individual and sensible things, 
a bed, a table, etc. (Eepub. x. 596). Nay, the ideas of bed, 
table, etc., were first formed by the Creator, first existed, 
before man cojoied the idea by making the sensible table, 
etc., the shadow, as it were, of the reality. The qualities of 
things are also ideas, and so likewise actions and activities ; 
a color, a sound, etc. (Oratyl. 423), even a name ; finally the 
soul itself is an idea. To use his own words, an idea may 
be attributed to whatever as a plurality may be indicated by 
the same name (Rep. x. 596 ; so Arist. Met. xiii. 3). The 
extent to which the term is thus applied is explicable, 
if one consider that in Plato's view there is nothing which 
is not comprehended in the range of true science as its 
legitimate object, while at the same time science deals only 



118 PLATO. 

with the fixed and immutable ; of course, then, something 
fixed and immutable pertains to all, eyen the most changing 
and sensible things, and that something is its idea — the 
prototype of its existence. Thus only, uniyersal science 
becomes possible. Here the question arises, since ideas 
comprise all reality, and truth, all real existence, what 
becomes of the sensible, how comes it to be, and of what 
value is it ? The transition from the ideal to the sensible 
is the most difficult point in the whole Platonic philosophy, 
the point least clear, most doubtful and ambigious. 

The sensible, according to Plato, is a compound of the 
"7cZe<x"with the " Other" or '^ non-leing''^ (Tim. p. 35) — 
a combination of different ideas to form one essence, for it is 
the nature of the sensible to comprise opposites within it, 
as the beautiful and the ugly, the great and the little, etc., 
as confusedly presented by the sensuous perception. This 
sensible world, however, is not a mere conception, but has 
reality in a sort, because it participates mysteriously in the 
nature of ideas. The relation of the sensible to the ideal 
is, however, merely that of resemblance (Rep. x. 597). The 
idea is the true measure or standard of the sensible. Plato 
in one place speaks of G-od as creating these ideas or proto- 
t3rpes of sensible things, in another place as creating the 
sensible after the pattern of these ideas already and eter- 
nally existing. 

The close resemblance of the Platonic theory of ideas to 
the Pythagorean doctrine of numier is noticed by Aristotle 
(Met. i. 12,13). 

As an example or illustration of what Plato means by 
ideas, W. A. Butler (Ancient Phil. vol. ii. pp. 116-118) 
instances the law of causality. Our senses perceive the 
changes that are going on in the external world, but it is 
only by the faculty of reason that we perceive the necessity 
of a cause to produce that change. Thus every change 
brings the reason of man into contact Avith an "Idea," and 
that idea is independent of the mind that conceives it ; 



PLATO, 119 

eternal. In like manner in all the phenomena of the 
world the ^*^idea" of the God is revealed; the idea — par- 
tially developed it is true, but yet manifest — of absolute 
perfection. And so throughout, as the phenomena of sense 
cannot be explained without calling to our aid something 
leyond sense, so in the eternal world exists a reason for every 
phenomenon of sense, a reason antecedent to the sensible 
phenomenon. And these reasons, or general principles, are 
the "ideas'^ of Plato. Nor are these reasons, or laws, or 
ideas, to be regarded as identical with being or the concep- 
tions of God. He is as far above them as they above sense. 

§ 6.— Plato's Theology, 

These ideas all stand related to each other ; the less 
included in the greater, rising rank on rank above each 
other, and it is the business of science to trace each idea 
up to its higher and still higher sources, till the last is 
reached. And what is the last, the supreme, the grand 
idea that comprehends under it and in itself contains all 
others ? What is this great supreme idea ? It is G-od, the 
grand ultimate of all existence and reality. A perfect 
knowledge and comprehension of this being is impossible 
to man. ISTo one general term will express the idea of 
God, or the good, as Plato interchangeably expresses it, but 
under these three terms it may be exhibited ; viz., beauty, 
PKOPOKTIOK, AKD TEUTH. God is the supreme object of 
science (Eep. vi. 505) and the sum of ideas ; as all variable 
phenomena proceed from and suppose an invariable essence, 
so the essence of all ideas and essences is in the last analysis 
to be found in the idea of the good (Rep. vii. 517), or God ; 
the pattern after which all is fashioned and to which all 
things tend ; God is the really beautiful and good. Man 
can strive after the beautiful and the good, and so partici- 
pate in it, become assimilated to the divine. God is ever 
the same, for the more perfect anything is, the less liable 
to be changed by another ; hence Deity, as the mostperfect, 



120 PLATO. 

is incapable of being thus changed. Still less can he 
change himself, for nothing good Yoluntarily becomes 
worse. Yet, being perfect, there is no change possible 
except for the worse. He changes not, therefore. Pleas- 
ure and pain are alien from him, yet his existence is eter- 
nally blissful, since participating in the good. All sensu- 
ous conditions of time and space are of course inapplicable 
to the Deity of Plato. He is omnipresent and omnipotent, 
and provides for all things, alike the great, and the little 
without which the great cannot be. He wills good to all so 
far as each is capable of receiving it. He unites in himself 
all wisdom and virtue. Hence G-odis reason (Phileb. 22). 
But wisdom and reason exist not without a spirit. A 
sovereign soul and sovereign reason belong to him. Such 
is the God of Plato, in comparison with whom man is 
worthless and contemptible. Yet Schwegler (Hist. Phil, 
p. 96) questions whether with Plato God is a ^personal 
being. 

§ 7.— Plato's Ethics. 

As Plato includes Theology under Dialectic or Philoso- 
phy, so his Ethics comprise not only Morals but Politics. 
It will conduce to clearness, however, to consider the two 
separately. The basis of ethics, with Plato, is not the 
idea of obligation or duty, the idea of the right, on which 
in our own view all morals rest, but the idea of human 
perfectibility, as attained by the right regulation of the 
conduct. Hence the close connection of ethics with dia- 
lectics, the latter furnishing the knowledge of the good, 
the true, the perfect, by which alone man can rightly 
govern his conduct. This is the distinguishing feature of the 
Platonic system of ethics, it being based, not on the idea 
of obligation, but of man's capacity for self -improvement, 
and its consequent intimate connection with science or 
knowledge. Indeed, in this latter point, Plato only carries 
out the Socratic doctrine, that virtue is knowledge, — that 



- PLATO. 121 

the two ideas are inseparable, no one is willingly or volun- 
tarily evil, only from ignorance does any man do eyil ; but 
not Yoluntarily is any one subject to ig-norance, since every 
volition aims at tbe good ; only from ignorance does the 
soul ever yield itself to the baser desires, following the 
apparent good, mistaking it for the real. "Where science 
is, then, there is the knowledge of the true and the good, 
and so there is morality. The mistaking of evil for good 
is an involuntary fault, a want of art ; the virtuous man is 
the skilful and successful artist, who knows how to accom- 
plish the right and the wrong. The vicious, ^. e., ignorant, 
man is a hungling artist. This is a grand defect in 
Plato's system. It sets aside the influence of the passions 
as a moving and disturbing force, and makes virtue a mere 
matter of intellect. It makes every man do as well as lie 
knows how, and even excuses his ignorance, since that, too, 
was involuntary. Is this a true picture of human nature ? 
Whose consciousness does not say no ? Who will not say 
with Ovid, ^' Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor " ; 
with Euripides, ^^ I hnow that what I am about to do is 
evil, but desire is stronger than my deliberations " ; with 
Paul, ^'that which I do I allow not, or approve not," 
Eom. vii. 15. 

As to the idea oi pleasure, what part does it play in the 
Platonic ethics ? The Sophists had taught that the good 
consists in pleasure. Plato refutes this error, yet does not 
deny that it is a good thing. It does not consist, accord- 
ing to Plato, simply in the negation of pain, as the Cynics 
maintained, but is a feeling of fitness and harmony in 
man's composite nature. Pleasure is of different species 
or kinds. There is that which is preceded by pain, as in 
case of hunger and thirst and other bodily desires, where 
the sensation of a want or pain precedes the gratification. 
This species of corporeal pleasure has its source in the 
want. There is another sort of pleasure which arises from 
painless desires, e. g., sight of beautiful colors, forms, etc., 
6 



122 PLATO. 

perception of agreeable odors, tunes, and purely intellec- 
tual pleasures. These are the simple and pure, while the 
former sort are impure or mixed pleasures. True enjoy- 
ment consists in those pure delights which mingle not 
with pain ; that which the rational nature feels in the pos- 
session of truth and goodness. 

Virtue, according to Plato, is of fourfold character. 
The soul is of threefold nature : reason, spirit, and sense ; 
each of these three has its appropriate virtue (Kep. iv. 441); 
that of reason is hnowledge of the good, or wisdom ; that of 
the spirit, courage ; that of the desires, temperance. There 
is a fourth, however, whose office it is to regulate the others 
and secure their due proportion and harmony, that is, jus- 
tice. By means of this, each faculty of the soul without 
interference performs its due functions and produces 
within the man complete and perfect order and harmony. 
Hence the just man alone can live in harmony with himself 
or with others. Weakness is the natural result of injustice ; 
strength, of justice. The just man alone is at one with 
himself ; the unjust is not one but a compound of many 
disjointed parts ; no strength in such a man. 

Happiness, says Plato, consists in the possession of the 
good and the beautiful (Sympos. 202, 204) ; or, as he else- 
where expresses it, in the possession of justice and wisdo^n 
(Gorgias, 508), or in the possession of moral beauty and 
goodness (Gorgias, 470). In the Euthyphron, Plato takes 
ground expressly against the doctrine, that the moral quali- 
ties of actions are dependent on the will of the supreme 'being. 
In the language of Butler (Hist. Phil. vol. ii. p. 145, 146), 
'* his whole philosophy of ideas as related to God is a structure 
raised to fortify the elementary principles of the eternal law 
of right against the irruptions of this degrading tenet." In 
the mind of Plato the nature of goodness is coeternal with 
God himself, not produced by him, nor dependent on him ; 
but he governs himself in all his acts according to these eter- 
nal relations of things, and makes his work conform to 



PLATO. 123 

that perfect model. " Plato has, indeed, with his usual meta- 
physical accuracy, seen that the eternal laws of Eight are 
in some mysterious bond (altogether beyond our concep- 
tion), entwined with the divine nature, and he accordingly 
represents them as contained by him in his own divine 
reason ; but nevertheless he maintains their substantial 
distinctness from the personal activity or volition of God, 
and their relation to him, not in the bond of cause and 
effect, but, to express eternal truths by sensible analogies, 
in that of model or examplar. They are coexistent, they 
may even be pronounced coincident ; but they are not 
consequential, resultant, inferior. . . God is related to 
the eternal ideas, as an architect is related to the model by 
which he labors." 

As to the relation of the divine being to the good and 
evil that are in the world, there is a fine passage in the 
Laws (x. p. 903-4), in Avhich the position is taken that the 
goodness of God is the final cause and law of creation and 
that everything is arranged with a view to the greatest 
good, while at the same time he has left to the disposition 
of our own wills the causes on which our distinctive charac- 
ters depend, " The King of the world, having known all 
this, conceived, in the general distribution, the system 
which he considered simplest and best, to the end that good 
might have the upper hand and evil le undermost in the 
universe. It is with this view to the whole, that he has 
constructed his arrangement of the positions that each 
individual, according to his distinctive character, is to 
occupy, — at the same time that he has left to the disposal 
of our own wills the causes on which these distinctive 
characters shall depend ; ^^ for men are what they mahe 
themselves to Z'e" (Quoted by Butler — ^whose translation 
I follow— Hist. Phil. vol. ii. p. 159-60). 



124 PLATO. 



§ 8. — Plato's Politics. 

With Plato, tlie individual is subordinate to the state. 
This is the grand characteristic of his political system. 
The distinction of indiYiduality is an unavoidable imperfec- 
tion of a state, as also the difference of sex, temperament, 
character, etc. — distinctions to be, as far as possible, merged 
and lost sight of in the polity of the state. The state is a 
unity, composed of individual parts indeed, but the parts 
are of no consequence except as constituent of the whole ; 
are not to come up with an importance of their own. To the 
good of the state all these individual distinctions are to be 
sacrificed. The state is everything. In this he only carried 
out with great vigor the spirit of the earlier G-reeks. 
Accordingly, the right of property is to be given up, or is 
allowed only to the baser order of the community, viz., 
tradesmen and mechanics. Property belongs not to the 
citizen but to the state. In like manner, children are the 
property, not of the parents but of the state ; nay, parent- 
age is to be unknown. A community of wives is to exist. 
The domestic and family relations are to be ignored. The 
increase of the race is to be provided for on the same prin- 
ciples as farmers provide for the increase and improvement 
of stock. Women are to be selected for marriage with special 
reference to this, and to be assorted to the men, not indis- 
criminately, but with special reference to the temperament 
and character of each — the mild of one sex with the violent 
of the other, and the reverse. Yet no man is to have wife or 
children of his own. The state is to provide nurses for 
the early education of the children, and the state is also, at 
a proper age, to assign each to his proper rank or office or 
profession, according to his capacity and talent. Woman 
is to share with man the toils of war and agriculture, 
and the few that are fitted to do it may share with him 
also in the pursuits of philosophy and government. The 
sick and the aged, as no longer useful, are to be abandoned. 



PLATO. 



125 



The duty of education lying tlius in the state, the arts, 
music, poetry, dancing, etc., are under its exclusiye control. 
Education is twofold : that of the tody, gymnastics, and 
that of the soul, music; the former, all training of the 
physical man, not for its own sake hut for the benefit of 
the soul ; the latter, including the fine arts, grammar, the 
arts of the muses, the sciences. These latter, however, 
subject to restrictiye laws, by which he would counteract 
the prevailing tendency to effeminacy and luxury in the arts, 
substituting the simplicity and gravity of the olden time. 
Poetry, dramatic and e^pic, he proscribes, as striving to 
imitate the passions and emotions, and so dangerous ; but 
lyric poetry, under due care and authority of the elders, is 
to be allowed as a branch of culture, so it be decent and 
grave, abstaining from all seductive ornament, and singing 
devoutly the praises of gods and heroes. As to this, Plato 
was a regular puritan. Kot even John Calvin looked with 
a colder and more philosophic eye on the fine arts, nor 
stout old John Knox on Queen Mary's music and dancing. 

The best form of administration he regards as the 
monarchical, or power vested supremely in one rather than 
in the many. He is no friend to democracy. Very few 
are endowed with the capacity for governing the state. 
One truly intelligent mind is alone competent for this. 
But he must be intelligent, knowing the good, a philoso- 
pher ; not till kings are philosophers will the state be well 
governed. 

As to different classes of society, the state is to be 
divided, as the individual soul, into three orders. Corre- 
sponding to the reason is to be, in the state, the sovereign 
power ; corresponding to the spirit, the next order in rank, 
assisting the sovereign ; parallel to the appetite, a third 
class, ministering to the bodily wants of man ; the ruler, 
the warrior, the craftsman. This last order, including 
merchants and mechanics, and workmen generally, he 
considers as of little consequence except as necessary for 



126 PLATO. 

the support of the other classes. They are left to train 
themselves ; are a sort of serfs ; nay, these manual and 
mechanic arts should as far as possible be confined to slaves, 
not citizens. Slavery, as an institution of nature, he main- 
tains. The warrior class is vastly more important. From 
this, the sovereign is to be chosen. Hence the whole class 
is to be most carefully trained and educated in gymnastics 
and music (as above explained), and so made fit for the art 
and office of government. The prosperity of the state de- 
pends on its care and faithfulness in this matter of educating 
its future rulers. Such is the model state of Plato, as de- 
veloped particularly in the two dialogues, " the Kepublic " 
and "the Laws." A strange admixture, you will say, of 
aristocracy, despotism, Fourierism, Puritanism, and the 
most thorough- going inhumanity. It is, indeed, a strange 
compound, but viewed as a whole, with all its defects, it 
excites our admiration, as an idea of government at once con- 
sistent, symmetrical, comprehensive, grand, and far-reach- 
ing in its general view, and altogether beyond and above 
the ideas of his age. Ueberweg (i. 131) regards it as an 
advance on all Hellenic forms and ideas of government, and 
an anticipation of the Hierarchy of the Middle Ages — the 
philosophers of the former being replaced by the priests in 
the latter. Plato indeed admits that it is a model not to 
be fully realized on earth, a perfect standard that can only 
be approximated. 

§ 9.— Plato's Physics. 

Plato denies to physical inquiries all pretension to true 
science, since they deal with the indeterminate and ever- 
changing, — with material forms, — and the knowledge thus 
derived cannot be therefore itself precise and permanent. 
The fundamental idea in his theory of physics is that of 
iecoming ; all nature is in a state of inchoation, it is always 
becoming, never is ; notliing fixed and determinate about 
it ; hence nothing positively certain can be known or laid 



PLATO. 127 

down respecting it (So Tim. p. 28). Matter or, as he 
calls it, the absolutely indeterminate, and which he does 
not distinguish from space, is the recej^tade, the mother of 
all things, it is eternal, coexistent with Deity (Timaeus, 
passim; Cicero Acad. ii. 37, 118). It is luitliout form, 
without an idea, without any primal property, unless it be 
that of a certain disorderly motion. Matter, then, is 
simply the condition of all natural existence, becomes 
orderly and animate only by the formative energy of ideas, 
of the good, of Deit}^, operating on it, giving it form, 
figure, fashion, order, beauty. 

Plato conceives of matter, space, and time as not real 
existences. Matter is the substratum of sensible qualities, 
a conception of the mind, a fine abstraction (Timaeus, p. 
49-51). Space is a mere condition of the sensible (Timaeus, 
p. 49 seq.^. Matter is eternal ; did not originate in time. 
Time is merely relative to the phenomenal world, created 
with it, and to end with it, if there be any end ; closely 
resembling the doctrine of Kant respecting time (Krit. der 
Eein. Yern. i. Theil. § 4). The Epicurean view is analogous 
in some respects. They held the sense-world to be real, but 
time to be a mental conception ; Plato holds both the 
sense-world and time to be equally unreal, the copies of 
the supersensible realities (See Butler, Anc. Phil. vol. ii. 
p. 173, 174). The reality is eternity, of which time is the 
moving image. ^'The Creator," says Plato (Tim. p. 37), 
'' determined to create a moving image of eternity, and 
in disposing the heavens, he framed of this eternity, 
reposing in its own unchangeable unity, an eternal image 
{alcjvwv eiKova), moving according to numerical succession, 
which image he called time." 

The world as it stands, is it from eternity, or had it a 
beginning ? The latter. It is visible, tangible, corporeal ; 
that is, it is sensible, and the sensible is not eternal but 
produced (Tim. p. 28). 

It must have a cause then, rational and intelligent ; 



128 PLATO. 

the father and fashioner of it. The operations of this 
cause proceed according to an idea or pattern, and that 
pattern is not itself an imperfect and perishable one, but 
eternal and immutable, for the world is the most beautiful 
of the works of God, the best of causes, and is made after 
his own resemblance and likeness (Tim. p. 29 ; Arist. 
Metaph. i. vi. 2). But God, reflecting, perceiyed that, to be 
the best, the world must not be irrational ; and that to be 
rational it must haye a soul. He therefore made it an in- 
telligent, rational, ensouled, and liying being. This soul of 
the world is the medium of connection between the eternal, 
immutable nature of reason and the changeable, diyisible 
nature of corporeal things, God uniting " the other " with 
'' the like " (Timseus, p. 35). The world, then, is an animate 
and rational being, and as it is modelled after a perfect 
idea, itself the image of the supreme idea, it is of necessity 
a unity ; there is but one world. It is perfect, moreoyer, 
subject neither to age nor dissolution ; indestructible, saye 
by the power that formed it ; yet eyen this diyine work is 
limited, for whateyer is produced must decay, has its 
periods of decay and reproduction, has already experienced 
seyeral successiye reyolutions, both by fire and water — 
which few of the race of men alone suryiyed ; not to be 
destroyed, howeyer, but to commence again a new era and 
a new existence. Its periods are determined by a perfect 
number. This periodic decay, this limitation of its exist- 
ing forms, is closely connected in his system with the 
existence of moral eyil, a fact which Plato finds it as diffi- 
cult as any other and all other reasoners satisfactorily to 
explain. It cannot be from God, this he is sure of (Repub. 
ii. 379). His yiew on this point closely resembles the an- 
cient Manichaean doctrine of two opposing principles, the 
good and the eyil ; the latter inherent in matter or the 
corporeal. He calls this latter principle, in one place, the 
evil soul of the world (De Leg. x. 896; see also Polit. p. 268). 
Eyil subsists only for the souls that are enshrouded in cor- 



PLATO. 



129 



poreal and mortal forms. The ground of its existence is 
tliat the body united with the reason or soul, disturbs its 
action, the mortal is impelled by its sensual desires. 
Hence the desires are classed by Plato among the passive 
states, and eyen diseases of the soul. Physical evil exists as 
a consequence of the moral, and the gods are, in some 
sense, its authors ; that is, so far as it contributes to good 
results. 

The world in order to its perfection, and to containing 
In itself all animals, must comprise every possible figure ; 
hence it is splierical, the most perfect and symmetrical of 
forms. As living, it has motion, and this, too, is the most 
perfect of motions, the circular. The body of the world, 
as that of man, exists only for the soul of it, which is dif- 
fused through the whole, yet has its chief seat in the centre, 
whence the action extends to the utmost heaven, which it 
draws about itself as a vesture. The four elements are the 
forms through which the becoming, or nature, necessarily 
passes in space, so many modes of the corporeal. These 
are necessary modes, since without fire nothing can be 
seen ; without the solid, or earth, nothing can be felt, and 
the corporeal must be visible and tangible. Grod necessa- 
rily, then, composed the world of fire and earth. But two 
things cannot cohere without a third, and if bodies are to 
have volume as well as surface (that is, to have four 
connected surfaces), there must be two connecting media, 
two more elements, water and air. The five regular 
bodies or figures correspond to these four elements (the 
pyramid to fire ; the cube to earth ; the octahedron to 
air ; the icosahedron to water, while the dodecahedron — 
equivalent to the cube — corresponds to the shape of the 
world and comprises all the elements). The entire sum of 
vitality is divided into seven parts, according to the har- 
monic numbers in the octave. By this, Ritter supposes he 
intended the seven planets of the ancients, in accordance 

with the Pythagorean doctrine. The external regularity 
6# 






130 PLATO. 

of phenomena, the principle of beauty, the health and 
strength of all living things, -result from this determinate 
order and harmonical composition of things according to 
numbers and figure. To make the world as like the 
eternal prototype as possible, Grod gave it, since he could 
not make it eternal, the property of measured time, the 
moving image of eternity. The sun, moon, and five planets 
were created to determine and watch over the numbers of 
time. Plato supposes a double revolution of the mundane 
bodies: the outer circle, the sphere of the fixed stars, whose 
movement is from left to right ; the inner, comprising the 
seven planets, moving from right to left, less perfect 
motion than the former. The former is the motion of 
''the same" ; the latter, of "the other," or of matter; the 
former, revolution round its own centre, moving ever in 
the same space, after the pattern of true reason; the 
latter, the movement of the other, or of matter, progres- 
sion in a straight hne. These stellar bodies are also li-vdng 
beings, more or less perfect according to the regularity of 
their movements, composed principally of fire, to look as 
resplendent and beautiful as possible, and spherical in 
form, similar to the shape of the All. Plato calls them 
divine beings, a race of heavenly gods, yet distinguished 
from the eternal G-od, since created and visible. The 
Earth is first and oldest of all the fixed stars, its place in 
the centre of the universe, where it spreads itself around 
the mundane axis, balanced by its own equilibrium, the 
guardian and artificer of night and day. It is uncertain 
whether he supposed the earth to be at rest in the centre of 
the universe, or to move round the axis of the world. 

Beside these immortal gods, or fire bodies, the stars, 
three species of mortal creatures were formed to inhabit the 
earth, the water, and the air. The Supreme God himself 
could not make these, since they would have been like and 
equal to the gods, consequently he committed the work of 
their creation to the subordinate deities, reserving the right 



PLATO. 131 

to communicate to these creatures whatever in their nature 
was to be immortal. A like number of these mortal crea- 
tures is assigned to each of the stars. The male ma,n 
was the first birth of all mortal creatures, and after a fixed 
period, known only to the gods, did the female and all other 
animals issue from this mortal form. 

As soon as the world, that vast animal, began to move, 
live, and think, God looked upon his work and was glad. 
In this account of the Platonic system of the universe, one 
cannot but be struck with the close resemblance in several 
points between his theory and the account given in G-enesis 
of the creation of the world. The earth in the centre — 
first and chief of all — sun, moon and stars moving round it 
and subordinate in rank ; the latter bodies created and 
moving to measured periods of time for the convenience of 
the former. Man first created, the eldest born of time ; 
woman from him ; Deity beholding his finished work and 
rejoicing. Had Plato read Moses ? Had he caught frag- 
ments of floating tradition ? Or were these the ideas that 
would most naturally commend themselves as probable to a 
deeply thinking and penetrating mind ? The latter is, I 
think, the true solution. Such is the Platonic system of 
the world, the soul, the universe (see p. 225-253). 

The influence of Plato on the subsequent thinking of 
the world has been perhaps even greater than that of 
Aristotle. At present it is on the increase. One cause for 
this, as Butler suggests, " is doubtless to be found in the 
attractive and affectionate tone, in the high and consoling 
doctrine, with which from the depth of antiquity Plato 
still addresses every elevated spirit. Wearied with the 
daily nothingness of a life which mocks with the illusion 
of happiness that retreats as we approach it, it is wonderfully 
soothing to speak, across the chasm of ages, with one who 
could thus distinctively perceive in the nature of his own 
reason, the promise of an eternal heritage above and beyond 
the visionary scene of earthly life" (Anc. Phil. ii. 11), 



132 AEISTOTLE. 

Another canse of this influence seems to me to lie in the 
peculiar charm of Plato's poetic and highly imaginatiye 
style, of which the same writer just quoted has so well said, 
"The ^Homerus Philosophorum/ as Cicero calls him, 
loves to see eyerything flush with the colors of pure and 
solemn poetry ; standing forever in front of the changeless 
and eternal, his spirit is filled with the exceeding awf ulness 
of the presence; and when he would speak, his thoughts swell 
into the strong rapture of a hymn " (Anc. Phil. ii. 215). 



CHAPTER IV. 

AEISTOTLE. 

The great master mind of antiquity. Less lofty and 
imaginative than Plato, less ideal, less grand ; but with a 
keener insight, a more sharp and subtle penetration, a 
more thoroughly scientific spirit ; of wider erudition and 
vaster learning, content to deal with facts and phenomena, 
but content with nothing short of a thorough comprehen- 
sion and complete mastery and scientific arrangement of 
these ; a mind that has left its impress more thoroughly on 
all succeeding time and all succeeding progress of the race, 
than any one mind, beside, that was ever created. Plato has 
had and will always have his admirers. But to Aristotle men 
go, even at this day, for information. Is there a parallel 
instance in all antiquity ? Professor Agassiz says of him,* 
"Aristotle knew more of certain kinds of animals and 
their general relations than is known now. For instance, 
he never confounded sharks and skates with ordinary fishes, 
while all modern naturalists would put them in one and the 
same class. Strange to say, I have studied the Selacians on 
the South American coast by the light of Aristotle's 

* Agassiz' lecture at Cambridge. 



AEISTOTLE. 133 

researches upon them in the Mediterranean Sea, made by 
him more than 2,000 years ago. I can fairly add that the 
knowledge of Aristotle on these topics is so far ahead of 
the current information recorded in modern works of 
natural history that his statements can only be understood 
by one who has made a special study of these animals. 
The community evidently shared his knowledge, for he 
refers to text-books of natural history which must, from 
the details he gives about them, have been superior to 
those we have now. You may seek in vain in the anatom- 
ical atlases of Wagner or Oarus for information about the 
structure of the reproductive apparatus of Selacians, to 
which Aristotle alludes as contained in the text-books of 
anatomists and belonging to the current knowledge of the 
time. My aim is to give you in this course a comprehen- 
sive though very condensed sketch of zoological science in 
our own day and generation, attempting to do what 
Aristotle did in his zoology. I wish I cou.ld handle my 
subject with the same mastery." 

I can best present what you will wish to know of Aris- 
totle by sketching first his life, next the leading outlines, 
briefly, of his philosophy in general, and then discussing 
more particularly the chief divisions of that philosophy, 
under the several heads of Logic, Physics, and Ethics. 

§ 1. — Life of Aristotle. 

Bom at Stagira in Thrace (hence called Stagirite), 383 
B. c. His father, a distinguished physician, friend of 
Amyntas, king of Macedonia, descended from Esculapius, 
left many works on medicine and natural history. This 
gave a bias to the intellectual development and pursuits of 
Aristotle, a tendency to physical investigations which is 
strongly characteristic of him through life. Aristotle was 
a gi'eat naturalist. At early age lost both parents ; care- 
fully instructed in physical science by Proxenus. Tradi- 
tion makes him a wild and not very economical youth ; 



134 ARISTOTLE. 

obliged when the patrimony was expended to resort to arms, 
in which career he is said to have distinguished himself 
chiefly for that species of yalor which is commonly called 
discretion and consists in keeping one's self in reserve for 
more important occasions. This I take to be a malicious 
slant, however, at philosophers in general. Better authenti- 
cated accounts make the youth, at the early age of sixteen, 
become a disciple of Plato at Athens, where he continued 
for twenty years, during which time he was most assidu- 
ously studying, not the system of Plato merely but all the 
works of the earlier philosophers, and indeed of all G-recian 
literature. He seems to have been impelled by a restless 
and insatiable desire for knowledge — a desire which no 
acquisitions could satisfy and no attainments quench. 
Plato calls him the reader, Aristotle's wonderful extent of 
information in almost all the branches of natural science 
may doubtless be attributed to these diligent years of inves- 
tigation and research in early life. Among other branches 
of knowledge, he was a proficient in medical science and, 
according to tradition, always uncertain, practised medicine 
in Athens. 

It is frequently asserted that Aristotle quarrelled with 
his great teacher, and was guilty of signal ingratitude and 
want of due respect toward him. Of this, however, there 
is, I think, no sufficient evidence. Plato may have dis- 
liked the caustic and severe spirit of his pupil, his keen and 
unsparing criticisms of all preceding systems and teachers ; 
he may have disliked his manners and life. But there is 
no evidence that the former friendship had given place to 
mutual enmity. Aristotle does indeed attack with unspar- 
ing severity many of the doctrines of Plato ; but this he 
was certainly at liberty to do, as one to whom truth was of 
more consequence than even the authority of a great name. 
It must be confessed, however, that he seems on the whole 
to have become widel}^ and perhaps unnecessarily estranged 
from tlie Platonic views, and to have assailed those views 



AKISTOTLE. 135 

often witli a bitterness that was needless and unbecoming. 
On tbe death of Plato, Aristotle left Athens, and resorted to 
the court of Hermeas, tyrant of Atarneus, a former pupil, 
it is reported, of Plato and Aristotle, at Athens. After the 
death of Hermeas, Aristotle, out of gratitude to his de- 
ceased friend and patron, marries his sister Pythias, left 
destitute by her brother's death. Shortly after, he is 
called by Philip to take charge of the education of his son 
Alexander, then three years old. He enjoyed the highest 
confidence of Philip, and also of the youthful prince. 
Stagira, his natiye town, was for his sake restored, and a 
gymnasium built there for his lectures. Aristotle did not 
accompany Alexander, as often reported, on his Asiatic 
expedition, but parted from him at the commencement of 
the Macedonian war and returned to Athens, where he 
opened a school. He taught in the Lyceum, walking up 
and down the shady avenues with his disciples, whence 
called peripatetic ; taught not philosophy alone but all use- 
ful sciences (Diog. Laert. y. 3; Cic. de Orat. iii. 35), espe- 
cially rhetoric. Two sorts of pupils : in the morning, 
those who discussed with him the profound questions of 
philosophy, and in the evening more general and prepara- 
tory instruction ; the first called acroatic, the latter exoter- 
ical, investigations. Spent thirteen years in these pur- 
suits at Athens, during which time composed many of his 
ablest works, and pursued his extensive investigations in 
natural history. After the death of his friend and patron 
Alexander, under whose displeasure he had latterly fallen 
in consequence of too free remarks on the habits and char- 
acter of that monarch (Diog. L. v. 10 ; Plut. Yit. Alex. 
55), Aristotle fled from Athens, to escape a fate similar 
to that of Socrates ; and died soon after at Ohalcis, aet. 63. 
His works still extant are numerous, while at the same 
time many of his most valuable treatises are supposed to 
be lost. 

His general character as a philosopher is well drawn by 



136 AEISTOTLE. 

Ritter in the following paragraph (Hist. Phil. vol. iii.): " In 
his works, on the other hand, we see him the calm, sober 
inquirer, who does not, like Plato, pursue a lofty ideal, but 
keeps carefully in view the proximately practical, and is 
not easily misled into any extravagance of language or of 
thought. His principal object is to examine truth in all 
her aspects, never to step beyond the probable, and to 
bring his philosophical system in unison with the general 
opinions of men as supported and confirmed by common 
sense, observation, and experience. . . . Generally a wise 
moderation characterizes his views of science and of life. 
The love of scientific pursuits was the predominant fea- 
ture of his character. . . Moreover, in Aristotle we have 
the cold inquirer and little more. Earely, if ever, does he 
step aside to consider the bond which connects the science of 
the universal and of nature with the human intellect and 
will. Consequently his works have more of that impressive- 
ness which constitutes the principal charm of Plato's 
writings. In the intimate contemplation of the soul's 
activity he is neither so profound nor so natural as in the 
observation of the forms and shapes in which outward 
nature reveals herself. In whatever degree this neglect of 
all that moves and excites the mind may have contributed 
to the simplicity of his works and the rigor with which the 
intellectual view is carried out, they have suffered in 
warmth and earnestness of style. . . Aristotle, even if 
his mind were not totally alien from every poetical element, 
was unable to combine the sober results of science with a 
lively imagination. Hence his deficiency in large coordina- 
tion of matter ; hence the necessity of his frequent repeti- 
tions ; hence, notwithstanding the occasional purity and 
clearness of his style, his ordinary exposition is rude, 
abrupt even in details, which renders it difficult to seize 
the connection of his ideas, and which seldom attains to 
perfect transparency of thought. At times the perusal of 
his works creates a suspicion that he had formed an 



AEISTOTLE. 



137 



ayersion to and intentionally ayoided eyery grace of style, 
consequently lie is always serious, at times cutting and eyen 
bitter, generally brief, though occasionally on unimpor- 
tant topics he becomes diffuse from an incapacity to seize 
his own meaning. With Ai'istotle, erudition has taken the 
place of art. He is the first philosopher in whom this is 
noticeable, and assuredly he contributed no little to establish 
that estimate of the preeminence of mere learning which 
was entertained by the later writers of Greece." Eitter 
further adds that we must look upon this '^ as the sign of 
incipient decay. Eor in the freshness of its youth the 
Greek mind loyed art more than learning." He admits, 
howeyer, that Aristotle is not chiefly to blame for this, 
since he only follows the tendency of the age, and allows 
that in his conclusions Aristotle is more yigorous and 
decisiye, and in his expressions more precise, than either 
Socrates or Plato. 



§ 2. — General View op Aristotle's Phtlosopht as a System. 

It seems to haye been his aim to collect, compare, 
digest the multiplied opinions and yiews of all past time in 
all the wide domain of science, and from the mass extract 
and set forth in scientific form whateyer was there con- 
tained of truth and yalue. This was a magnificent plan, 
and diligently and strictly was it carried out. Plato, it 
has been well remarked, flourished at a period when the 
"Athenians were for the most part content to be merely 
spectators of eyents," and had leisure to reflect upon the 
springs of human conduct. His philosophy accordingly, 
is mainly directed to the inner, and has little application 
to the outward and actual. But the course of eyents 
was now changing. 

The Greek mind began to look out of itself. Impor- 
tant reyolutions were now commencing in history. Greece, 
as a nation, was about to lose its high and independent 
position. But it was also to become the teacher of nations, 



138 AEISTOTLE. 

and, while the sceptre of national dominion passed out of 
its hands^ it was to wield that mightier sceptre of intellec- 
tual ascendency over the minds of men. Greek letters 
and Greek philosophy were to become the predominant 
culture of other and great nations. What shall better 
prepare the way for this than that some capacious and 
gi'eat mind should arise and lay out for itself the bold 
scheme, to grasp in one comprehensive and complete view 
the whole product hitherto of Greek thought and science, 
arrange, collate, reduce to scientific form, and then, if 
anything were wanting, by diligent investigation of nature 
and her phenomena, add that to the already existing mate- 
rial. Such a mind was Aristotle's. Such a plan, such a 
work was his ; and faithfully he wrought it out. " This," 
says Eitter, "this exactly, is the signature of great minds, 
to be almost perfect representatives of whatever is peculiar 
and characteristic in their age." It will be perceived, then, 
that the aim and labors of this great workman were two- 
fold : to seize and set forth scientifically the results of 
past efforts and previous thinking, and also to present in 
complete and compendious form the objects and laws of 
the external world as the sphere of man's activity ; facts, 
and the philosophy of facts ; the " what is,'' and the 
" tvhy it is.'' Of these, he looked on the latter as even the 
more important. With Plato, he regarded a knowledge of 
the first grounds of things as the most perfect science. 
These two aims seem to be very seldom combined in the 
labors and plans of any one mind. It is usually the work 
and delight of one man to investigate and collect facts and 
phenomena ; of another, to inquire into the first causes and 
grounds of these phenomena, and set forth the laws and 
philosophy, according to which it must needs be so and so. 
It is a striking peculiarity of Aristotle that he proceeds 
cautiously, is never rash in his conclusions, limits his own 
assertions and conclusions, goes no farther with any confi- 
dence than phenomena will bear him, is undecided and 



ARISTOTLE. 139 

hesitates tlie moment facts are wanting on which to rest 

with certainty, does not hazard an assertion then; ''we 

must wait/' he says, ''for further phenomena, for phe- ■ - 

nomena are more to be trusted than the conclusions of the 

reason." What more truly philosophical remark did Lord 

Bacon or Sir Isaac ISTewton ever utter ? 

Aristotle's general view and definition of philosophy 
would seem to be this : the science of the ultimate grounds 
of all being ; the science, whose object and aim it is, by 
purely scientific reasoning, to ascertain the grounds on 
which all science rests. This view distinguishes philoso- 
phy from every species of action and all the arts of life ; for 
these do not, like the former, regard the eternal and im- 
mutable, but respect the changing circumstances of life. 

"All science," says Aristotle, "must set out from 
something already known — in a word, must have its first 
principles or grounds, apxai, which are not themselves 
science, but the result of immediate cognition (Anal. Post, 
i. 1 ; Eth. Nic. v. 3), which he distinguishes from strict 
science, though he calls it a certainty. "Who does not 
perceive in this the very doctrine and almost the very 
language of Eeid, Stuart, and others, who claim for their 
philosophy a basis of first principles, and style it accord- 
ingly the philosophy of common sense. The very term, 
apxai, first principles, is the very expression employed by 
Dr. Eeid. 

Aristotle divides philosophy generally into the theoreti- 
cal and the practical (according to Diog. L. v. 28 ; so also 
Metaph. vi. 1), including under the former, metaphysics, 
physics, and mathematics (Metaph. x. 7), under the latter, 
or the practical, ethics and politics (Nic. Eth. 1. 1, x. 10 ; 
Ehet. i. 2), the former, whatever pertains to right thinking, 
the latter, to right acting. The more general, the Platonic 
division of philosophy into logic or metaphysics, physics, 
and ethics (Cicero de Fin. v. 4, ascribes to him this divis- I 

ion, and some of Aristotle's works, as Topica i. 14 ; Anal. ill 



140 AKISTOTLE. 

Post. i. 33, indicate the same), seems, however, best to suit 
his general system. What we term metaphysics, what 
Plato called dialectic, and the ancients usually logic, 
Aristotle calls the " first pliiloso^oliy.^^ " There is a science," 
he says, ^^ which occupies itself with the principles of every 
other science, investigates the nature of that which -all other 
sciences assunie. It is, then, the science of the universal ; 
has to do with heing as leing. This is th.Q first pliilosopTiy, 
Physics would be the first and only philosophy, if there 
were no other substance than physical. But if there be 
another, existing neither in matter nor motion, the ground 
of all entity, then there is a science lying back of physics. 
There is such a substance, the ground and cause of all 
being — even G-od. The first philosophy is, then, essentially 
a theology ; but it includes also the consideration of all 
existence, so far forth as existence, independently of any 
special mode in which it exists. Being, as distinct fi'om 
matter — this is the object and sphere of the first philosophy, 
that is, of absolute philosophy. Physics, on the other hand, 
treats of being, not as leing, but as participating in motion, 
while mathematics treats of it as permanent, indeed, but 
not as separable from matter. Physics and ethics cannot, 
from their nature, then, admit of the same certainty as the 
first philosophy. Ethics, he grants, will not admit of 
strict demonstration, but, as conversant about what gener- 
ally happens, its reasonings start from phenomena, and 
can reach only probable conclusions. Physics are equally 
uncertain ; for nature is inconstant as well as opinion, and 
so in this case also we must look only for probable, not for 
certain, conclusions. Aristotle employs the term dialectic, 
not as Plato, but with reference to such objects as admit 
only ot probable conclusions. 

With Aristotle, as with Plato, the science of the good 
is that which holds the first place above all others. This 
falls, however, under the first philosophy, or metaphysics. * 

* The relation of the logic proper of Aristotle, or the Analytica, 



AKISTOTLE. 141 

Next follows physics, as the second philosophy. In the 
last place comes ethics, science of the practical or of 
human nature, which Aristotle, howeyer, designates by 
the term politics, rather than ethics. Of all these, it is 
only that which inyestigates first principles that strictly 
deseryes the name of philosophy. 

^ 3. — Aristotle's Logic. 

The first thing which attracts our attention on looking 
oyer this department of the Aristotelian philosophy is the 
frequent reference to the so called categories. These are 
nothing more than the seyeral genera under which the 
yarious forms of thought and being — of whateyer is — may 
be included, and to which they may all be reduced. He 
enumerates ten of these, without, howeyer, professing to 
giye a complete enumeration. These are essence, magni- 
tude, quality, relation, the where, the when, position, habit, 
action, passion. These were afterwards reduced to eight 
(Anal. Post. i. 22 ; Phys. y. 4; Met. y. 7). Whateyer is 
affirmed or thought of things falls under some one of these 
heads, supposing the enumeration to be complete. 

With Aristotle, as with Plato, language holds an impor- 
tant place as the manifestation of thought, and he directs 
his inquiries specially to the inyestigation of the forms of 
language, as the true way of arriying at a knowledge of 
thought and being (Met. y. 7). He begins with the 
simplest element of it, the word. This is neither true, 

to the other divisions of his philosophy, is not very clear. It is not 
to be confounded with the first philosophy, the science of the ulti- 
mate ground of things, to which the name logic, in the wider sense of 
that term, is sometimes given. Logic proper is not included under 
either of these three divisions, Metaphysics, Physics, or Ethics, but is 
regarded as preparatory to them all. As to the logic proper, it has 
been remarked by Kant that only in two points has the logic of the 
moderns advanced beyond that of Aristotle, i. e., the fourth figure, 
and the hypothetical and disjunctive syllogism. It may be seriously 
questioned whether either of these is any true addition to the science. 






142 ARISTOTLE. 

nor false ; cannot be ; becomes so only when united with 
other events in a proposition. The true and the false can 
be expressed only by the union or separation of snljed and 
predicate, indeed being and non-being are nothing else 
than this. Combining subject and predicate, or the 
thought of one thing with that of another, Ave have the 
proposition ; and the proof is true or false necessarily, 
since it expresses a relation of one thing or thought to 
another, which relation may or may not be true — r)iust be 
either true or false. The simple enunciative proposition 
is here intended. This is of two kinds, affirmative or 
negative ; mutually opposed, and when asserted of one and 
the same thing in one and the same sense, contradictory of 
each other. Propositions are either universal or particular, 
and here again admit of opposition to each other. This prin- 
ciple of contradiction is with Aristotle the groundwork of 
reasoning, the highest principle on which all demonstration 
is founded. You can find no reason of this principle ; it is 
a first truth, that is, the affirmative and the negative, the 
particular and the universal, cannot both be true at once 
of the same thing in the same sense. 

Aristotle finds it necessary here to confute those who 
maintain the falsity of every idea predicable of thought and 
of being, on the ground that the sensible, which comprises 
all thought and being, is not worthy of reliance : in sensa- 
tion the same object appears differently to different persons, 
is susceptible of opposite changes, and consequently nothing 
can with truth be affirmed of it. Aristotle replies that 
sensation is not to he confounded ivith mere conception, that 
every perception is true as regards its proper object, as to 
its immediate declaration. Its testimony is not opposite to 
itself, nor conflicting with itself, at one and the same time ; 
and when there is doubt at any time as to it, the doubt is 
not as to what the immediate perception is, but as to 
whether it corresponds to reality. Sensation, he further 
argues, is an operation of the sentient person, exists not of 



ARISTOTLE. 143 

itself independently of the sentient being. There is some- 
thing distinct from it ^vhich. produces it, is the ground ot it, 
and so prior to it of course, and even if sensation itself be 
false, this something zvhich is the ground of it must exist, 
and exist as true quite independently of all sensation. 

Our knowledge Aristotle, with Plato, holds to be relative ; 
but things themselves are not mere relations. There is a 
substance, a primary to which relations appertain, a first 
ground and substratum of which all else is predicated. Not 
all things, then, can be reduced to mere sensations. Aris- 
totle also combats the notion of the Eleatics and Herachtus, 
who held that all things are equally true. Even those who 
had this view, he says, must admit that there is such a thing 
as false opinion (else why do they argue or affirm), and if 
all assertions are equally true, then distinctions of good and 
evil are annihilated, and those who speak of what is as they 
think are really speaking of what is not. 

Aristotle next proceeds to examine the laws of right 
reasoning, as regards especially the use and value of the 
syllogism. He speaks only of the first three figures of the 
syllogism, and regards the first of these only as perfect, i. e., 
both U7iiversal and affirmative, while the others may be 
reduced to this. Aristotle makes two sorts of syllogisms, 
the demonstrative and the inductive ; the latter sets out 
from the consideration of particulars already known and so 
reaches a general conclusion, the former sets out from some 
general and admitted principle, and reasons to a particular 
conclusion. Of these the former deals with what is best 
known to us, but still is uncertain, since all phenomena are 
changeable. The latter is more certain and valuable. 

These two are the only strictly scientific procedures. 

§ 4. — Metaphysics of Akistotle. 

There are four essential principles common to all reali- 
ties. These are matter, form, moving cause, and end or 
final cause (Met. i. 3). And first, of matter. Of all exter- 



144 ARISTOTLE. 

rial existence, possessing such and sucli qualities and pre- 
senting such and such appearances, there must be back of 
all these qualities and appearances, some primary substance, 
the basis of all this lecoming, the ground of it all, ca]3able 
of receiying all possible determinations, yet in itself inde- 
terminate, imperceptible even, and unknowable. This is 
matter. It is to all determinate things what the wood is to 
the table, or the marble to the statue. Form, or essence, 
is matter become knowable and perceptible, haying receiyed 
some determination, haying become this or that which the 
senses can recognize. It is whatever a thing is actually, 
not brass in the abstract, mere material without figure or 
any determinable quality, but a brazen statue of such and 
such dimensions and proportions. "With Aristotle, form 
takes the place of the " Ideas " of Plato. 

The Platonic theory of ideas as actual existences or 
essences, Aristotle rejects, as inconsistent with physical 
and even with ethical science, as confounding the grounds 
of all things, and so at variance with truth and with phe- 
nomena, assimilating things that differ widely, as the 
perishable and the imperishable, the sensible and the eter- 
nal — these all resting, according to that theory, on one and 
the same ground, having one and the same essence, i. e., 
the idea; whereas there must be different grounds for 
things so different. The only essence, according to Aris- 
totle, is that of the individual (Metaph. i. 9, vii, 13, xiii. 
9 ; see also, De Anima, iii. 4. 8). 

Aristotle admits the idea and existence of infinity. The 
infinite exists, but not as the actual^ for that is always 
finite ; it exists as potential, and consists in this, that it is 
always possible to take more and more in addition and 
subtraction, and so on forever. In and by itself it is 
i7iconceivaMe, however, and, like matter, is a ground of 
things ; itseK, like matter, ingenerate and imperishable. 

These investigations as to matter lead to similar inqui- 
ries as to the nature of motion. How does matter pass into 



AEISTOTLE. 145 

form, the potential become the actual ? By motion, of 
course. Motion is the passage from the potential to the 
actual (Phys. iii. 1). Now the potential does not, of itself, 
possess the power to become actual. Motion does not result 
from it therefore, but from something out of it. Matter 
cannot moYe itself. There must be out of it some already 
existing actual substance, as a moving cause (Metaph. ix. 8; 
De Gen. An. ii. 1), Motion, moreover, is without begin- 
ning ; has always been ; else, prior to all motion, the mova- 
ble and the mover must have come into leing. This would 
itself be motion, and that prior to all motion, which is 
absurd ; hence motion is eternal. That is, the movable, the 
moving cause, and the motion, are all without beginning. 
The same thing follows also from the infinity of time. 
Time cannot be conceived without a noio. A now is the 
point intermediate between past and future ; every now 
implies a past, and as this is true of every moment, every 
now, it is therefore impossible to conceive of the beginning 
of time. Time, however, is only a particular kind or determi- 
nation of motion. If one is without beginning the other is. 

As there is a moving cause, so there is also a final cause; 
the former indicates the source or origin of the motion, 
the latter the end or design of it. Every hecoming, all 
motion, has some design, some end. This tends to the con- 
sideration of final causes, which Aristotle regards as the 
highest problem of philosophy. In answer to the question, 
Wherein consists the end of all becoming ? Aristotle replies. 
Good is the final end, also Being ; all change or becoming is 
for the sake of Being or Essence, which is better than non- 
being. (He distinguishes two kinds of activities: that which 
has its end in itself, and that which has not ; as seeing, 
knowing, life, etc., are complete in themselves, while to 
learn, to be convalescent, and so generally anything not 
yet complete, are activities looking to some end out of 
themselves. The former he calls energies, the latter motions. 

There are, then./oi^r causes of phenomena; the material, 
7 



146 ARISTOTLE. 

the formal, the moying, and the final (Phys. ii. 1, 3, 7; 
Met. i. iii, xi. iv. 5, v. 2, 4, vii. 4), not acting independently 
of each other, but cooperating in every sensible object, 
distinct only as the object is regarded from these several 
points of view. This he illustrates from analogy. A 
house or statue, in order to be built, must have an art or 
artist as moving cause ; an end, the proposed work ; a 
form or thought — logos — after which it is fashioned ; some 
material, of which it is built. So also in nature the same 
four causes. 

The existence of a self -moving cause, as a separate self- 
subsisting essence, is a very important feature of the Aris- 
totelian metaphysics. He arrives at this position in the 
following manner. If there is anything imperishable, there 
must be also an imperishable substance as the ground of 
what is imperishable. But time and motion are imperish- 
able. Therefore there is an imperishable substance as 
their ground. Moreover, phenomena would otherwise be 
inexplicable if there were not a necessary mover, one whose 
essence consists in activity and motion, else he might at 
some time not have moved, and then motion were not 
eternal. Argument of Clark anticipated completely in this. 
This cause is itself unmoved, since always working in the 
same manner. It is one, since a single eternal unmoved 
cause is sufficient to account for all phenomena ; one, for 
another reason also. Motion is permanent and eternal ; 
what is permanent is one, and proceeds from a single cause. 
Still another argument for the same. The eternal mover, 
being all activity and not mere potentiality is, by the very 
notion thus formed, devoid of matter (Metaph. xii. 6, 7), 
but matter is the ground of multiplicity, hence the eternal 
mover, not participating in matter, cannot be resolved into 
diverse individual beings ; must be one. This cause or 
being is free from all constraint ; is a necessary being, i. e., 
cannot be otherwise than it is, immutable, ever-existing, 
therefore not to be compassed by, or contained in time — 



ARISTOTLE. 147 

nor yet in space, for it is without parts and indivisible, and 
so has not extended magnitude. It is not sensible but con- 
ceivable by the understanding alone ; hence is itself under- 
standing, or reason, or mind. Thought is ths- mode of its 
activity, the highest and most blessed form of life (Met. xii. 
7). It is the essence of things, the best, the end of things. 
It is the fulness of entity, the fulness of felicity — happy, not 
by the accession of external good, but by the felicity and 
perfection of its own nature. Its activity is its life. In it 
the knowing and the knower are one. In the Metaphysics 
(xii. 7), we have, as Schwegler appropriately terms it, an 
almost devout sketch of the ever-blessed Deity. Such is 
the sublime yet strictly scientific view of the Supreme Being 
in the philosophy of Aristotle.* Different quite from the 
Platonic. With Plato, ' God was the supreme unity, far 
transcending all human conceptions, above reason and above 
science. Aristotle is more definite, less mythical, discards 
all figures of speech in such a connection, lays down every- 
thing in definite, exact, scientific statement. Yet is cau- 
tious and reverent, aware of the sublime height which he 
was endeavoring to scale. The God of Aristotle is not 
indeed above all comprehension of science, for then it would 
be only an imaginary God ; but he is above all that pertains 
to the human ; above all virtue even, for virtue is a human 
quality ; morality is not to be ascribed to Deity, who is far 
above all such conceptions (p. 260). From this elevated view 
of the supreme he seems to us to descend when he proposes 
the question, whether the moving cause has its seat in the 
centre or circumference of the moved world, and concludes 
that it is in the latter, since the latter moves more rapidly, 
and is therefore nearer the source of motion. 

Eitter well remarks, in comparing the Aristotelian with 
the Platonic doctrine of the supreme, that in either and 

* In the De Nat. Deorum (ii. 37) Cicero gives, from the dialogue 
concerning philosophy, a fine passage of Aristotle, in which he presents 
an argument of a more popular sort, drawn from the divine works. 



148 ARISTOTLE, 

in every possible theory of the system of the universe, "a 
principle of necessity gradually and as it were imperceptibly 
takes its place alongside of the divine or intellectual power." 
There must be a limitation somewhere. The difference 
between these two systems is that Aristotle does not, like 
Plato, ascribe the imperfection and evil of the world to the 
nature of things, but at once and without explanation of 
the evil, admits the coexistence of matter and of becoming, 
such as it is, good or bad, with God from eternity. God, 
then, is not to be held responsible for the fact of evil. 
Neither is he the absolute creator of matter. He is limited 
in this. He bestows on things, not their potentiality to be — 
that is inherent in matter — but only their actuality, and 
even this in the sense merely of permitting these various 
forms to arise. ^'Aristotle," says Ritter, '^ was the first of 
the Socratists to reconcile the idea of life with that entity — 
so gave a wide extension to the domain of philosophy." 

§ 5. — Akistotle's Physics. 

Aristotle conceives of nature as an opposite to reason 
and to art. It has in itself the ground of motion and rest, 
whereas works of reason and art have not. This idea lies 
at the basis of his physical speculations. Nature is in 
itself a principle of motion and rest in that to which it 
pertains — an inward force or energy which sets things in 
motion or at rest, according to their nature. Like God, it 
performs nothing without an end; avoids all infinity; is not 
omnipotent. It is both form and matter. It is that which 
works in all things, and is the ground of their existence and 
development — the universal mundane force. As there is 
eternal motion — the life of all things — in the world, so also 
a life-giving heat pervades it, and in some sense a soul. 
The world is a sort of living being ; for though some things 
are lifeless, and have not power to move themselves, yet 
even these possess the principle of universal nature, while 
living things enjoy a special moving force. All phenomena 



AEISTOTLE. 149 

are deriyed from tliis inner force of nature. Hence the 
physiology of Aristotle is dynamical. All becoming has an 
end in yiew, Grod and nature do nothing without a purpose 
(De Coelo i., 4), and the most important problem in phys- 
iology is to determine the ends which phenomena are 
designed to accomplish. Nature always pursues the good, 
but is limited by the nature of its means, and so often 
produces the imperfect ; is an artist working with a sort of 
unconscious impulse, not self-conscious ; it is easier for it 
to produce the bad than the good ; it is rarely, and only 
with painful effort and many trials that it reaches excel- 
lence. Whatever does not fall in with the general laws of 
nature and attain the general and designed end, he calls a 
deformity and abortion. Thus the female is a deformity 
and not equal to the male, and all inferior orders of ani- 
mals are deformities, judged by the same standard, the 
male man. This seems to have been the type at which 
nature aimed, and whatever falls below it is a failure. 
The soul is the end for which the body exists, and is the 
essence of it ; just as the several organs have some special 
end, so the body is for the sake of the soul. 

As to motion, this is the condition of all nature ; for 
there is no rest possible except where motion is also 
possible. Motion, as already said, he defines to be the 
passage from the potential to the actual, a middle term 
between the two. It must belong to what is continuous, 
therefore, and must presuppose space and time. This 
calls up the notion of the infinite and its relation to space, 
time, and motion. Infinity of time has its ground in infin- 
ity of motion, and this again in infinity of space ; which 
latter does not consist in the infinite extension of corporeal 
body, for that is limited by surface and cannot be infinitely 
extended. The world, as corporeal and special, is limited 
therefore, in magnitude, and so not infinite. Every luJiole, 
every complete thing, has an end and limit. The infinite is 
imperfect, and nature lias a liorror of it as such. 



150 



ARISTOTLE. 



Infinit}^ of space, therefore, consists not in unlimited 
corporeal extension ; in what, then ? in infinite divisi- 
bility which pertains to space and all that is special. Now 
motion proceeds throngh the infinite parts of space, and 
hence is itself infinite, being equally continuous with 
special magnitude. But what is space ? This is a ques- 
tion which puzzled Aristotle as much as it does us. It is 
neither matter nor form; of that he is sure. It is that which 
contains all things (Phys. iv. 4). He seems to have taken an 
objective and physical view of it. It is something which 
admits of division into particular spheres, each with some 
special faculty of its own. The proper place of the earth 
is in water ; of water, in the air ; of air, in ether, while the 
ether is in heaven, which last is the Ultima Thiile — nothing 
beyond. Hence Aristotle speaks of above and beloiu, the 
right and the left, before and behind, etc., as relations not 
referring to man only, but pertaining to nature itself. 
Space is full of contents, no vacuum. And what now is time ? 
Had there been no motion this question had never been 
asked, for without motion, without change and the percej^- 
tion of change, time would not have existed for us. If the 
present did not differ from the past, there would be no time. 
Time must either be change, i. e., motion itself, or some 
accident of it. But it is not motion itself, for motion is 
something moving in space, which is not true of time. It 
can only be an accident, then, of motion. We become con- 
scious of time only by designating motion as earlier and 
later. In order to have a clear idea of time, we must in 
like manner distinguish two parts of time, as before and 
after, separated by an intermediate N'ow (Pliys. iv. 11). 
Consequently time is the number of motion, the more or less 
of it, the measure of it. But is it not the measure of rest, 
too, as well as of motion ? Yes, incidentally, but rest is 
only the privation of motion and is therefore measured by 
the same standard. This intermediate Now is the indis- 
pensable condition of time, for it is the limit between the 



ARISTOTLE. 151 

past and the future, holds them together, is to it what the 
point is to space. Through it, time becomes continuous 
and infinitely di visible, like space and motion ; but the now 
itself is indivisible and in it nothing can either move or rest. 
Time could not be without a soul, for it is the number of 
motion, but there can be no number without one who 
numbers, and only the human soul is capable of numbering. 
This is of course a subjective view. Time does not with 
him consist in the revolution of the heavens, though this 
revolution, being uniform and well known, is best adapted 
to be the measure of motion. 

The motion of nature is uniform, continuous, and infi- 
nite. But as the space of the world is finite, how can in- 
finite motion go on in it ? Not in a straight line, of course, 
for the end would by -and by be reached : only a circular 
motion answers the conditions of the case, a motion in 
circle and a motion always in one direction, returning into 
itself, uniting the beginning and the end, thus perpetual 
and unbroken, and proceeding through all time. Such is 
then the motion of the world. The world is a sphere which 
is a perfect figure, a complete whole, and can receive no 
accessions, and, as the world is itself a complete whole, it 
must therefore be of that figure. Now the parts at the 
centre of course have but an imperfect motion, those at 
the circumference partake of the perfect revolution of 
the circle. Heaven is at the circumference, fit abode for 
the gods as nearer the source of motion. Earth at the 
centre, far away from the perfect motion and the prime- 
mover, given over to imperfection. As to Heaven, Aristotle 
with due modesty acknowledges our incapacity to know 
much, yet holds it desirable to investigate that which is of 
all things most worthy of regard. The stars he thinks are 
passionless beings, more divine than man, who have reached [ I, 

the highest end of their existence. The Heaven has a soul 
and possesses in itself the cause of its motion, else inferior 
even to man. Its movements, unlike men's, require no 



ItK,' 



152 ARISTOTLE. 

repose. Its motion is from left to right, since that is the 
better. The heaven is divided into two parts, the upper 
the place of fixed stars, the lower, of the planets, sun, and 
moon. The upper receives its motion directly from the 
prime mover ; the planets, influenced by the motion of the 
fixed stars, move in contrary directions and in oblique orbits. 
The earth is in the centre of the universe. There are four 
sensible elements, derived from the contrarieties of sensible 
qualities, which maybe reduced to four, viz., the warm and 
cold, the dry and moist. These combining, the warm and 
dry constitute fire ; the warm and moist, air ; the moist 
and cold, ivater ; the cold and dry, earth. These are the 
only possible combinations, and therefore there are these 
four elements. All living beings are composed of these 
four elements. All nature is in fact endowed with life, in 
his view ; even the lifeless elements are organic parts of an 
animated whole, and are in some sense animated. 

There is regular transition and progressive advance from 
the lower to the higher in all forms of life, from the element 
to the plant, thence to the animal, and thence upward to 
man. As life is, with Aristotle, only spontaneous nutrition, 
growth, and decay, and as the soul is the energy (entelechy) 
or power of every organic living body, so even the plant 
has life and also a soul ; yet plants have no sensation, for 
they have no central seat of life, no internal principle capa- 
ble of receiving the forms or impressions of the sensible. 

Beside the four elements that enter into all forms of 
life, there is a fifth equally universal, that of ether, the 
first in rank, extending from the stars to the moon (Meteor, 
i. 3 ; De Ooelo, i. 3), the source of the vital heat, which all 
living beings possess, though in different degrees. Those 
creatures that have the most of this vital warmth are 
noblest ; those that have the least are the inferior. Such 
are plants and aquatic animals. 

All animals have sensation, as necessary for the percep- 
tion of their good, and therefore pleasure and pain, neces- 



AEISTOTLE. 153 

sary consequences of sensation. All have not voluntary 
motion. Toucli and taste are the most needful senses, and 
BO possessed by all ; sight and hearing are useful chiefly to 
the sagacious and self -moving animals. There can be but 
five senses, for no sensuous organism for more than 
five is discoverable, the media through which the senses 
reach distant objects are incapable of transmitting any 
other impressions than those of sight, hearing, and smell. 
These five senses are referred to the four elements : taste 
and touch to earth, smell to fire, hearing to air, sight to 
water. The brain is not the seat of sensation, says Aris- 
totle, neither the blood, which serves for aliment, but the 
heart, which is also the seat of motion as well as sensation, 
and in which all the activities of animal life meet and 
centre. Each sense requires a medium through which the 
sensation may be conveyed to the prime sentient. The flesh 
is such a medium, and all the perceptions of the several 
senses are transmitted by means of it, and meet together in 
a common or principal sense, the heart, which is cognizant 
of them all. The brain is intended solely as a counterpart 
to the heart, cold to temper the warmth of the latter. 

As regards psychology. The soul is the reunion of all 
the activities of the body. The hand has its end and 
design, which is its proper action, so every member, so the 
whole body also ; and the design of the whole, its perfect 
action, is the soul. The sou.1 is the first energy, or entel- 
echy, then, of the organized body. It is not to be con- 
ceived as extended magnitude, for thought has not parts ; 
neither as in space, or capable of motion ; it is above all 
natural generation and all corporeal existence, itself the 
cause and principle of body, both as essential, as final, 
and as moving cause. The soul possesses these several 
faculties : the nutritive, which is alone the property of the 
plant; the sensitive, which animals possess; the locomotive, 
belonging to the higher classes of animals ; the rational, 
peculiar to man. Each of these, as named in its order, 
7* 



154 A HI S T T L E. 

may exist independently of those that are higher, e. g., the 
nutritive without the sensitive, etc. Man combines the 
whole. The heart, as already stated, is the common sense, 
which takes cognizance of all the others. It also has 
another office, to perceive certain sensuous representations 
not perceived by the other senses, viz., motion, time, num- 
ber, etc. Sensation he defines as a motion of the soul 
through the body (De Somn. i. 185), and distinguishes 
between sensation and the object sensed (De Anima, ii. 5, 
iii. 1, 16 ; Met. ix. 3). From sensation are evolved imagi- 
nation, memory, and recollection. Imagination (as Hobbes 
afterwards taught), is a weaker sensation, explained by the 
motion which sensation leaves behind in the soul, and 
which continues awhile : memory combines with the 
sensation a perception of having had the same before, and 
so is the faculty of those animals only which have the 
perception of time, Eecollection, the voluntary search for 
the past occurrence, is peculiar to man alone, memory 
pertains to brutes. 

Aristotle rejects the doctrine of Plato as to the origin 
of ideas — that they originally subsist in the mind, brought 
over from previous existence and awakened to reminiscence 
by sensation. He regards it absurd to suppose that we 
knew all along certain things without knowing that we 
knew them until the moment of sensation and reminiscence. 
He rejects, accordingly, the Platonic doctrine of ideas as a 
source of knowledge, and he traces the origin of all our 
knowledge to sensuous perception or observation and expe- 
rience (Met, i. 1 ; Anal. Pr. i. 30 ; Anal. Pos. i. 18 ; De 
Anima, iii. 5 ; Diog. L. v. 29 ; Oic. Acad. i. 9), which, 
however, he makes the ground of a higher knowledge not 
confined to phenomena, but acquainting us with principles 
that are non-sensuous, and of which intellect alone takes 
cognizance. Still the two are intimately allied. That which 
the intellect alone grasps exists, not in and by itself but 
only in the sensible, can only be known in the sensible, 



AEISTOTLE. 155 

and in that sensation one could know nothing : not merely 
perception of external objects, but memory and imagination 
come through some previous sensation. But without the 
imagination presenting some definite image to the mind, 
something conceived and definitely present before our 
minds, we cannot tliinlc ; so that all intellectual activity is 
due j)i'imarily to sensation. The sensuous presentation is 
jirior in time to the rationdl intelligence, and the necessary 
condition of it. The latter is the product of maturer age, 
the former exists in childhood. 

It is evident that Aristotle relies much on experience 
as a source of knowledge, but yet not ivJiolly. In this he 
is often misunderstood and misrepresented. Mere experi- 
ence, he admits, is not science. Men of mere experience he 
calls lifeless instruments working without knowing what 
they accomplish. Mere collectors of facts, they know 
only that things are so and so, without inquiring why they 
are as they are. There is then a higher faculty than 
experience — the reason, or rational faculty of the soul — 
which stands related to the sensible, much as the soul is 
related to the body. This faculty is not dependent on the 
senses ; is impassive, incorporeal ; has no bodily form ; is of 
gradual growth in the indi^ddual ; exists at first as a mere 
potentiality, not as an actuality ; a blank tablet, on which 
as yet no inscription is entered. How is it awakened to 
action ? how written upon ? not by sense or experience, 
though these are the prior and necessary conditions of its 
activity ; but by the divine and internal reason, the su- 
preme intelligence, acting on and awakening the individual 
reason to action. Science is the result. 

Yet so intimately allied are the reason and the sense 
that, though pure science is the product of reason alone, 
still Induction is the basis of all science, and complete ,^ , 

knowledge the result only of complete experience. || | 

Sensation is accompanied with pleasure or pain, and 
these are always followed by desire, and so result in volun- 



156 



AKISTOTLE. 



li 



tary motion. Conception, or thought also, as well as sen- 
sation, leads to voluntary motion ; for a certain degree of 
warmth attends thought, and thereby produces a motion 
in the body, slight at first but greater as it removes from 
the starting point. Eeason or the rational conception and 
sensation both stand in the same relation to desire. Both 
may produce desire, by presenting some good capable of 
being attained. Sensation is often erroneous in its con- 
clusions, however, while reason is not so. So that some- 
times we desire real good, at others only apparent good. 
These rational and sensuous desires are often in conflict, 
and the soul is ruled now by one, now by the other. In 
either case, however, we act freely, and are therefore re- 
sponsiUe. It lies in our power to follow the reason, and so 
we are the authors of our own virtue and vice ; else it 
were idle to exhort man to virtue or punish him for crime. * 
As regards the immortality of the soul, the doctrine of 
Aristotle is by no means clear. The soul is the first entel- 
ecliy of the body, the perfect flower and blossom of it, 
that for which the body exists. It is the possession alike of 
plant, animal, and man. The former, the plant-soul, pos- 
sesses the principle of nutrition ; the second, the animal- 
soul, has not only this, but in addition, the principle of 
sensation and voluntary motion ; the man possesses, in 
addition to all these, reason. Now this latter element of 
the human soul is impersonal and eternal ; not the soul 
itself as a conscious existence, a personal being, but only 
the impersonal reason. That is the only immortality I 
can find in Aristotle (See Butler, vol. ii. p. 389-391). 

* The Aristotelian psycliology, or doctrine of the soul, is most 
fully developed in the three books, Trepi ifjvxyg, or De x\nima, of which 
Butler gives an excellent analysis in the second volume of his 
Ancient Philosophy. See also Ueberweg and Schwegler. 



ARISTOTLE. 157 

§ 6. — Ethics of Aristotle. 

The term politics lie employs to designate what we 
usually denote by ethics, comprising whatever has for its 
object hnman good, whether in the family, the state, or 
the individual. Hence a three-fold division of the subject : 
into ethics, which investigates what is for the moral good 
of the individual, and which is the basis of the whole 
science ; economics, the right management of the family ; 
politics in a stricter sense, or the offices of the state. 

In general, it may be observed that Aristotle does not, in 
his ethical investigations, take so high a ground as Plato. 
The latter connected with all his inquiries on this subject, 
the consideration of the highest possible good, absolute 
good in itself, the divine element, while Aristotle limits 
himself to that which is yracticable for man (Eth. ISTic. i. 2. ) 

Morality, according to Aristotle, grows out of many 
natural endowments. He is, by nature, a social and politi- 
cal creature. I^othing, indeed, which is contrary to nature, 
can be either morally beautiful or morally good. Nature 
has implanted in man an impulse to action and desire, and 
this is the spring of all our actions. So that the basis of all 
moral acts is some natural disposition. In this he diverges 
from Socrates, who made reason the basis of morality. Aris- 
totle makes the '^o-dr]^ the disposition and affections of the 
soul, the basis of moral conduct. First, there arises an 
irrational impulse to good. Reason afterwards comes in 
with its sanction. The child may act right from impulse 
merely — instinctively. This is not virtue, however. Not 
till, at a mature age, reason is developed, does virtue come 
into play. Socrates overlooked that part of our nature 
which brings us under the influence of sentiment and haMt, 
and the very important part which these principles perform 
in our moral procedure ; hence, the idea that man can 
transgress only involuntarily, and of course irresponsibly. 
True, Aristotle says, all men pursue what seems, or appears 



% 



158 ARISTOTLE. 

good, and cannot control entirely their own conceptions of 
the good, but then men have power by their moral conduct 
over their imaginations and conceptions. While as yet 
the moral character is in part only formed, it is under their 
control. It is only by their actions that men acquire vir- 
tue or vice. As when one throws a stone, after it has gone 
\\ forth from his hand he has no power over it indeed ; but 

while it is yet in his hand he gives it force and direction, 
and has full control of its movements. Hence, men are 
responsible for their conduct. It is in their power. Even 
those who sin ignorantly should be punished for that igno- 
rance, provided they could have known. Aristotle insists 
much on the practice of virtue, as essential to the true 
knowledge of it. The habit of virtue must precede the 
practical knowledge of it. It is not a thing to be learned, 
as Socrates taught, at least in any other way than by prac- 
tice. It is by three things, then, that man attains virtue, 
viz. nature, haMt, and reason. 

The passive states of soul, or passions, desire, anger, fear, 
love, truthj envy, etc. , give rise jfco conduct which is, in Aris- 
totle's view, contrasted with the moral. These feelings are 
neither virtuous or vicious in themselves, do not make one 
good or bad, are undesigned on our part, and man is irre- 
sponsible for them. Only it is necessary that there should 
be observed the right measure and medium of them. Im- 
moderation in them becomes a fault. How we are to know 
and attain the right measure in all cases, is left somewhat 
in the dark. 

T\iQ first and last object of man^ s endeavors should be to 
realize the good and the beautiful. The practical good is 
that which is performed for its own sake alone. 

Aristotle attaches a higher value to pleasure than Plato 
and Socrates had done. Pleasure is not always happiness, 
he admits ; some are evil pleasures. But yet he goes not 
witli those who decry all pleasure as unworthy of man, and 
as intrinsically bad. The real tendency of pleasure he 



ARISTOTLE. 159 

pronounces to be good. Pleasure is not with Mm, as with 
Plato, a mere transient state ; it is itself an end, an energy ; 
not a mere inactive enjoyment, but inseparably combined 
with the soul's activity (Eth. Mc. x. 4). The pleasure 
which he recommends, is a rational self-love, desiring good 
for itself, but not to the injury of others, held within due 
limits, and subject to the control of reason. It is a pleasure 
which is ready to sacrifice anything and all things for 
some great and noble end ; for, says Aristotle, "It is better 
to live gloriously for a year than for many years as the 
common herd ; better to perform one great and glorious 
deed than many trifling acts," 

What, then, is virtue f It is the acting, not from instinct, 
impulse, and passion, but the doing of the good and the 
beautiful, consciously and intentionally. It is not a mere 
capacity of the soul, but a disposition acquired by prac- 
tice — a habit of the soul. The right standard of it varies 
always with circumstances. What is right for one, 
is not for another, necessarily. It is the due medium 
between the too much and the too little. All virtues are 
inseparably connected with each other ; and there are, in 
fact, as many virtues or species of virtue, as there are of 
passions of the soul. Each Adrtue is the mean detiueen tivo 
vices. He makes a general division, however, into the moral 
and the intellectual virtues, the desires to good, and the 
intelligence or reason governing the desires. 

The aim of all moral action is happiness — evSac/iovia, rb ev 
Ctv or ^v Trpdrreiv, right living, or well-doing ; and this only 
comes from doing the particular work which pertains to 
man as man (Eth. Mc. i. 6, x. 7). Man's peculiar work 
consists in a life of action controlled by reason, an honor- 
able and a virtuous activity (Eth. Mc. ii. 5) ; and in this, 
accordingly, lies his highest happiness (i. 6, x. 7). 

The ethical virtues are courage, temperance, liberality, 
love of honor, mildness, truthfulness, urbanity, friendship, 
justice (ii. 7). 



160 



ARISTOTLE. 



Courage is tlie mean between fearing and daring, 
between the fool-hardy man and the coward (ii. 7, iii. 10). 
He only is truly courageous, who is not afraid to die hon- 
orably, and who is ready to face danger and death for the 
sake of the morally beautiful (Eth. Mc. iii. 9, 10). 

Temperance is the mean in regard to pleasures and 
pains — the mean between intemperance and insensibility 
(ii. 7, iii. 14). Liberality is the proper mean in giving 
and receiying — ^between prodigality and stinginess (ii. 
7, iy. 1). Mildness is the proper mean as regard desire of 
reyenge or anger (ii. 7, iy. 11). Truthfulness regards 
yeracity in speech and action ; friendship has regard to the 
social relations ; urbanity to the rendering ourselyes agree- 
able to others (ii. 7, iy. 12-14). Justice, in the general 
sense, is the exercise of all yirtue toward others (y. 5), the 
giying of eyery man his own or his rightful due. Regarded 
more specifically, it is of two kinds, distributive and commu- 
tative, the former relating to the distribution of honors or 
property according to the merit of the in dividual, the latter 
exacting equality in wares, in the medium of exchange. 
Aristotle limits justice solely to the civil relations of life. 
It is the mean between doing and suffering injustice. He 
distinguishes between what is naturally just, and what is 
legally so in the state. Natural law is better than positive 
law, equity than legal justice. 

Aristotle gives few precepts for the conduct of practical 
life. It has been justly objected to his system that it 
leaves ultimately everything in doubt ; that it directs us 
to pursue a just medium, but tells us not how to deter- 
mine what a just medium is. The explanation of this is 
that Aristotle did not look upon ethics as a distinct branch 
of philosophy, but only as incidental to politics as depend- 
ent on man's relation to family and to country. As to 
friendship, Aristotle has some fine thoughts (Mc. Eth. 
viii. 9). Eriendship may be based on the agreeable, the 
useful, or the good. The latter is the noblest. Friendship 



AKISTOTLE. 161 

is not indeed a virtue, but virtue cannot exist without it. 
Society is indispensable to man, he cannot live alone, but to 
live with others he must be virtuous. There can be no love 
without return ; still the loving is better than the being 
loved, for to love is an energy of the soul. Love is possible 
only among the good, who only are capable of a true self- 
love, since they only have attuned their souls to harmony 
and concord. Love and concord are the bonds of political 
society, and there is a very close affinity between love 
and justice. The end of love and friendship is the social 
and civil state. 

As to the family : the family consists in the society of 
husband, wife, and children, and the communion of prop- 
erty. As to the property, Aristotle thinks that the most 
valuable possession is man, the slave ; and therefore that this 
is a necessary element in the family economy. Like Plato, 
he regarded slavery as a natural dispensation. Nature 
determines the end of all her creatures, and of man the 
destination is to govern or be governed. Some have intel- 
ligence to design and foresee, these she intends for mas- 
ters ; others have bodily strength to labor, these are meant 
for slaves, for whom it is better to be governed than to 
govern, having not reason enough for that. If such, mis- 
taking their calling refuse to serve, they may be forcibly 
seized. The slave is the absolute property of his master, 
and has no rights against him. Still he should be treated 
kindly and well. The child until of age is in like manner 
wholly under the father's control, though not a slave, yet 
not his own governor. The father is the rightful king of 
the house (Pol. i, 12). The rule in the family belongs to the 
man as better than the woman, yet the woman is not to 
serve like a slave. Her duties are within the house, man's 
without, and where she is obliged to do the latter, it is 
proof of a degenerate race of men, unfit to be masters. 
Yet she ought to be subject to her husband, ^^for though 
she has a will of her own, still it is but weak." It would 



m 



162 ARISTOTLE. 

seem from this last remark that Aristotle's experience in 
this line must have been somewhat different from that of 
Socrates. The latter, while thoroughly convinced that 
woman has a will of her own, would hardly have added, 
that it was a will deficient in strength. 

Out of the family, a community arises, a company of 
families forming a society, and several such communities 
of families forming a state, that is, a sufficient number of 
such families to be able to provide within their own limits 
the necessaries of life. The state arises, then, out of the 
weakness of separate communities ; out of considerations of 
utility. Its object is not, however, merely to provide the 
necessaries of life, but to secure good order and the general 
welfare. The end of the state is good living (^^ Ivv), the vir- 
tue and happiness of the citizens (Pol. vii. 8). Its citi- 
zens must be men of virtue, then. Not merely living in 
the same country together, makes men citizens, and forms 
them into a state ; for the Irutes do that, yet are no citi- 
zens. They only are citizens, who by a just constitution 
enjoy rights, authority, and law. A state can only subsist 
between freemen and equals. Aristotle is decidedly con- 
servative in his views ; averse to political change. The duty 
of the citizen is to maintain the constitution under which 
he happens to he lorn and live. 

There must be different classes in the state : cultivators 
of the soil and mechanics are needful to provide the neces- 
saries of existence ; soldiers to fight ; rich men to defray 
expenses ; priests to do the religious ; and judges to do 
the civil services. Unlike Plato, he does not advocate a 
community of property, for these reasons : that such a plan 
would diminish the care of property ; nobody takes such 
care of the public property as of his own ; and also it would 
destroy the virtues of liberality and modest demeanor 
toward others. The better way, he thinks, is to make prop- 
erty personal, but the hejiefit of it common hy insuri^ig 
rig III sentiments aynong tlie people. 



ARISTOTLE. 163 

ISTor would he have a community of wives and children ; 
such a plan is against the very notion of a state, as growing 
out of the union of families. The true object of the states- 
man should be, to prevent both extremes — luxury and 
indigence. "It is much more important to make wants 
equal than property." 

Of the different forms of government, Aristotle regards 
a monarchy as best, as being most favorable to virtue ; aris- 
tocracy next ; democracy least of all. Tyranny is the very 
worst. In this view, he shows the current of his age and 
nation. What is to be done, he asks, with a man far 
superior to all others for political wisdom ? put him to 
death ; banish him ; let the mass and rude herd rule over 
him ? No, he is a lion among hares ; let them submit to 
his rule. But he may be a vicious king. To avoid the 
danger from this source, let the monarchy be limited in its 
powers ; the king having more power than any other one, 
but less than the whole together. 

The political power varies with the various pursuits of 
a people. Agricultural and pastoral nations suitable for 
republics, being occupied with their own concerns, and not 
disposed to change, or greedy of ofiBces and honors. 
Handicraft-men and hired laborers make the worst kind 
of democracy. Eiches tend to oligarchy. A flat country 
will be likely to be democratic, a hilly one aristocratic. 
The best form of constitution, not theoretically, but prac- 
tically, is that where the middle classes preponderate over 
both the rich and the poor, and have the supremacy. 

It is advisable that laborers should be a distinct class 
from the military and sovereign, as their pursuits are de- 
grading. Those who are engaged in producing the neces- 
saries of life should be a lower grade or caste of citizens, if 
not slaves. 

The first and great end of legislation should be the vir- 
tuous character and conduct of the citizens. Politicians, 
however, look more to what is expedient, he says, than to 



164 AKISTOTLE. 

ivliat is good mid ieautiful, more to war than to peace. 
Tlieir object is to enlarge the territory ^ rather than to ren- 
der the state just and wise. This is a mistaken poHcy. 
Whatever is not at the same time just is impolitic ; and it 
is a wrong precept, he says, which bids men de gentle only 
to friends and savage to eiiemies. Noble sentiments these, 
for an age like that 1 It is an erroneous opinion, he affirms, 
that a state mnst be at war in order to its own activity and 
prosperity. A state ought to possess within itself enough 
to keep it active continually. ^^War exists only for the 
sake of peace, and unquiet for the sahe of quiet." The 
virtue of a state consists not in the 'bravery of its citizens 
exclusively, but in their justice, moderation, and wisdom. 
These four virtues ought to be the paramount object in the 
efforts of the legislature. In order to train the citizens to 
these virtues, education becomes indispensable, and must 
be under the control of the state. The state should care 
most of all for this (Pol. viii. 1). The state should com- 
mence its care of the indi^ddual at birth, should direct and 
control marriage with a view to the physical perfection of 
the race ; a deformed child ought not to be reared, and 
the number of children should be limited. To secure this, 
abortion is allowable, but not infanticide. Education is 
to begin at birth, and have regard first to the body, through 
that it must influence the desires, and through these the 
reason. Till the age of seven, the child is to be brought 
up at the father's house, and this period is to be devoted 
chiefly to the training and rearing the bodily frame. It 
must be inured to hardships, not to luxuries and ease. Chil- 
dren must be kept as much as possible from the company 
of slaves, and especially from everything immoral in word 
or act. 

Before five, they should be taught nothing to tax the 
mind ; education should not be mental until after that age ; 
from five to seven they may be shown what they are sub- 
sequently to learn. Two other periods of education follow 



ARISTOTLE. 165 

this : from seyen to puberty, and from that to twenty-one. 
During all this time, education is to be public and con- 
trolled by the state. As to the means of education, and 
precepts for it, Aristotle is deficient. He simply informs 
us that four means are usually employed : grammar, design, 
gymnastics, and music. 

Such is a brief outline of the philosophy of Aristotle, 
as comprised under the diSerent departments of Logic, 
Physics, and Ethics or Politics. 

In reyiew of the whole, we are struck with this one 
feature of his system, the magnitude of the plan and design 
which he marked out for himself to accomplish ; with the 
general thoroughness and completeness also of his execu- 
tion and detail. We are struck also with this general 
characteristic of the man as a philosopher, yiz., his want 
of an ideal, his preeminent fidelity to the real, tangible, 
possiUe, practical. In this respect, how widely does he 
differ from Plato. * He is scientific rather than imagina- 
tiye and lofty. Yet he is theoretical, quite as much as 
practical. His philosophyf has been that of the schools, 

* As to the agreement or disagreement of Aristotle with Plato, it 
is sufficient to say that while in some important matters they agree, 
in others equally important they widely differ, e.g., as to the doctrine 
of " ideas," the nature, and previous existence of the soul, the nature 
of virtue, the nature and value of happiness ; in a word, as to psychol- 
ogy and ethics, to say nothing of other matters, the two writers differ 
essentially, so that we can hardly accept as true the statement of 
Cicero and the philosophers of the New Academy, that Plato and Aris- 
totle agree in substance, and differ only in terms (see Cic. Acad. i. 4 ; 
De Fin. iv. 2, v. 3 ; De Leg. i. 13). 

f Beside those already mentioned, the following references may be 
given as authority for the foregoing statements : 

For the Aristotelian Ethics in general, (Eth. Nic. i., lii. 1-8, vi., vii. 
12-15, X.; Mag. Moral, i. 1-20, ii. 7, 8, 10; Eth. Eud. i., ii., vii. 
14, 15 ; Diog. L. v. 30, 31 ; Cic. de. Fin. v. 4, seq.). 

For the doctrine of Aristotle respecting Natural Theology, the fol- 
lowing general references : (Phys. ii. 6, vii. 1-3, viii. 1-9 ; Metaph. 



166 AKISTOTLE. 

rather than of the nations. Still, in its general influence on 
the world, on all countries and all ages, for more than 2,000 
years, it has no superior, no rival. Accuse Aristotle, and 
all antiquity rises up as his pupil in his defence. 

xii. 1, 2, 6-10 ; De CcbIo, 3, 4,9 ; Nic. Eth. x. 8. 9 ; Cic. de Nat. Deor. 
i. 13, ii. 37). 

Fertile Psychology of Aristotle, the following : (De Aiiima,i. 1-5, 
7-9, ii. 1-3, 5, 6, 12, iii. 2 ; Eth. Nic. i. 13, vi. 2 ; Cic. Tusc. i. 10 ; Diog. 
L. V. 32-34). 



PERIOD THIRD. 



POST-SOOEATIO. 

GENERAL YIEWS. 

With Aristotle the Socratic period terminates. After 
his death certain disciples of his school taught his doctrines 
with some modification. Tlieoplirastus, his immediate 
successor, and Strata are the most celebrated of these. 
The tendency of the school was more and more to sensa- 
tionalism ; to observation and experience and study of 
nature, and consequently, finally ran out into materialism 
with the later disciples, and especially with Strato, who so 
far deviated from the ground of Aristotle, yet following 
the general drift of that system, as to deny the immateri- 
ality and immortality of the soul and the being of God, as 
first cause and distinct from nature itself. The influence 
of the school and system diminished in proportion as it 
reached these results, and gave way to other systems called 
up in part by the spirit and tendency of the Aristotelian 
views. 

Before we proceed to speak of the several schools that 
sprang up subsequently to the Aristotelian, it is well to notice 
the state of Greek society, and especially of Athens, at this 
period, since philosophy was greatly modified by it. Aris- 
totle had survived the fall of Grecian independence. The 
liberties of Athens were at the mercy of a foreign power, 
and after the death of Alexander, its political importance 



mm 



168 POST-SOCRATIC. 

and its independence were finally destroyed, and its degra- 
dation became complete. The Athenian mind consoled 
itself for the loss of political distinction and prosperity by 
a still greater abandonment to voluptuous gratifications of 
every kind, and the city became as noted for its luxury 
and refinement and manifold pleasures, as it had been 
and still was for its intellectual culture. A general cor- 
ruption of morals had already become prevalent ; the 
pleasures of the table were immoderately pursued ; cooks 
were in as great demand as philosophers, and in fact both 
were considered indispensable. A life of pleasure was per- 
haps nowhere and at no time made so systematic a study 
and business as at Athens at this period. Hence it became 
the favorite residence of the tyrant Demetrius, to whom the 
Athenians paid worship as to a G-od, and to whose courte- 
sans altars were erected in the temple of the chaste goddess 
Minerva. Against this corruption Stoicism set itself with 
scowling bitterness and asceticism ; while the lighter 
philosophy and the lighter comedy fell in with the current 
and relished the spirit of the times. That was a strange 
mingling of intellectual culture with the refinements of 
luxury ; of philosophy with the most open and systematic 
voluptuousness, the like of which is nowhere else to be 
found in history. ISTever in the palmiest days of Athens, 
had philosophy and its teachers been in higher honor and 
repute. "Women of pleasure frequented the halls where the 
prof oundest questions of intellectual science were discussed, 
and tyrants neglected their thrones to take part in these 
discussions. 

It was impossible, of course, that philosophy should 
escape the degrading influence of such manners and such 
an age. The stern spirit of Socrates, of Plato, of Aris- 
totle, no longer ruled in the schools. That spirit, so pro- 
found, so calm, so earnest, so little akin to the merely sen- 
sual, so lofty and divine, had passed away, and in place of 
it reigned a flippant, superficial scepticism on the one 



THE SCEPTICS, 169 

hand, and on the other, a philosophy as easy and sensuous 
as the age which gaye it birth — the Sceptics and the 
Epicureans. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SCEPTICS. 

The most noted teachers of this school were Pyrrho of 
Elis and Timon of Athens ; the former a pupil of Democ- 
ritus, the latter a noted author and poet. The general 
tenet, or ground vieio, of this class of philosophers was that 
virtue and happiness are one and the same. Three things, 
they say, are to be considered by him who would live hap- 
pily : 1. What things are in themselves ; 2. His relation 
to them ; 3. Consequences of that relation. 

As to the first : All things are indifferent, and as to 
truth uncertain ; neither our senses nor our opinions are 
to be relied on. All that you can say of anything is, that 
whatever is affirmed of it, the opposite may just as well be 
affirmed, and with equal truth. Nothing is certain, nothing 
true, nothing beautiful or the reverse, nothing just or un- 
just (Diog. L. ix. 61, 62, 105 ; Cic. Acad. ii. 42 ; De Fin. ii. 
11, 13, iii. 3. 4., iv. 16 ; De Offic. 1). Against the reliability 
of sensation they argued that the sensations of men are not 
always the same ; things appear sour or sweet, straight or 
crooked, according to circumstances ; to one person the one, 
to another the other, and even at different times differ- 
ently to the same person. A strong sensation and a weak ^^ ^ 
one give us perception of altogether different qualities in 
the same object. 

To the second question, then, the answer is obvious. 
Everything is doubtful ; no positive assertion can be haz- 
arded. " We do not know certainly anything." '^ I assert 
nothing, not even that I do not assert anything." 
8* 



ii 



170 THE EPICUREANS. 

As to the third point, consequences, the answer is. 
Entire indifference to things in general, and a total apathy, 
are the true and just consequences of this relation (Cic. 
de Fin. as above, and De Offic. ; Diog. L. ix. 66-68 ; Sext. 
Emp. adv. Math. iii. 2 ; Hyp. Pyrrh. i. 25). Things being 
thus, it is not worth while for us to go out of our way for 
anything. The sage will take things as they come, and 
troubles himself about nothing. He will be a tranquil 
man ; happy because without agitation, and without opin- 
ion, almost without humanity. There is no difference 
even, nothing to choose, between sickness and health. Life 
itself is not of any great value, for death is the end of all 
disturbance, and insures that tranquillity which so many 
things in life tend to disturb. In practice, however, these 
philosophers were obliged to contradict their theory, and 
conform to the state of things about them ; could not be 
indifferent to all things, nor totally inactive ; were obliged 
to choose, and to act, but did it under a protest of neces- 
sity, and contented themselves with the moderation of those 
desires and passions which they could not wholly suppress. 



CHAPTER TI 

THE EPICUEEANS. 

The philosopher from whom this noted sect takes its 
name was born at Athens or Samos, it is doubtful which, 
341 B. c, of Athenian parents. His father was a teacher 
of grammar, and his mother of magic. The youth was of 
inquiring spirit, and early began to develop the philo- 
sophic tendency. So early as his thirteenth year he puzzled 
his teacher with a question which showed the bent of the 
boy's mind. A passage of Hesiod was repeated to him 
which speaks of all things arising out of Chaos : " And 



THE EPICUREANS. 171 

from what did Chaos arise ? " The teacher extricated him- 
self from this unexpected diflBculty, as well as he could, by 
referring the troublesome pupil to philosophy for an answer. 
To philosophy he went, studied this and studied that, but 
got nowhere an answer to his question ; but instead of that 
plenty of new questions to be settled. His yiews in general, 
however, were drawn from Democritus and the earlier 
philosophers. After yarious changes and vicissitudes, he 
opened a school for philosophy at Mytilene, and afterward 
at Lampsacus, in which places he resided nearly fiye years. 
In his thirty-sixth year he came to Athens, opened a school, 
and continued it till his death, 270 B. c, at the age of 71. 
When his reputation was established, he left the resorts of 
the other philosophers and set up as an independent teacher 
in a yilla and garden of his own. Here, surrounded with 
friends, he passed a life of ease and pleasure, devoted to 
philosophy and tranquillity. He wrote more works than 
even Aristotle, but by no means so profound. The Epi- 
cureans are as noted for their friendship to each other, as 
the Pythagoreans. In a time of need they contributed to 
each other's support. No very strict or sombre views of 
life prevailed in the garden of Epicurus. Men of pleasure 
patronized the new philosophy, so congenial to their tastes, 
and daughters of pleasure were constant attendants upon 
its teachings. Yet the moral character of Epicurus is said 
to have been far removed from that general corruption of 
the time, in even the natural tendency of his own doctrines. 
"'Men are aliuays tetter or zuorse tlicm their opinions, '^^ said 
a profound observer of human nature. 

What was the real tendency of those teachings is matter 
of doubt. There are not wanting reasons to suppose that 
the common opinion regarding the Epicurean school is 
quite incorrect ; that the looseness of morals so often 
charged upon its disciples, and the pleasure-loving and 
sensuous character of its teachings, are not justly attributed 
to this system, but are unfounded calumnies arising, in 



m 



;i !' 



172 THE EPICUREANS. 

part, out of mistaken notions respecting that system, and 
in part out of the malice of the rival and antipale sect of 
the Stoics, who were not slow in charging all manner of 
evil upon a sect so totally at variance with themselves as to 
all the great principles of philosophy. Certain it is, that 
Epicurus not only led a strictly temperate life himself, and 
enjoined it upon his followers, but the essential principles 
of the system make moderation in all sensible enjoyments 
an indispensable requisite to true happiness. There can 
be no doubt, however, that the philosophy of the garden 
was of a character to be readily abused and perverted by 
evil minds, and that it could be made, and was made, to 
tolerate vice and justify unsound opinion and unsound 
practice. 

Nothing, certainly, could be more unlike the severe doc- 
trines of Plato and Aristotle. The school of Epicurus set 
out from an entirely different conception of what philoso- 
phy is and should be. With them philosophy is no longer 
the art of truth, the science of the true and the good ; but 
the art of life, the science of the useful, the science of the 
means of happiness. Hence ethics is the chief philosophy 
(Diog. L. X. 24-31 ; Sext. Emp. adv. Math. xi. 169). 
Science as such, Epicurus disregards, as contributing noth- 
ing to happiness. All logical discussions especially he de- 
spised as useless. Physics were subordinate also, and ethics 
are the main philosophy with him. The supreme good is 
happiness, the satisfaction of all our natural desires (Diog. 
L. X. 131-139 ; Cic. Fin. i. 9, 11). Pleasure is the princi- 
pal constituent of happiness. Not man only, but all ani- 
mals instinctively pursue pleasure and avoid pain. Men 
ought to do deliberately what animals do by instinct. 
Every pleasure is a good in itself, but compared with other 
pleasure may be an evil. Pleasure ought not to be pursued, 
then, for its own sake, but with reference to the general hap- 
piness of life, and so some pleasures should be avoided as 
occasioning future grief and pain. No pleasure is ;per se 



THE EPICUEEANS. 173 

to be rejected, but some must be sacrificed on account of 
consequences (Diog. L. x. 141). Even pain is to be endured 
at times, for the sake of the good to come from it. It is 
not tbe happiness of the moment that is to be regarded, but 
that of the whole existence. In this he differs from the 
Cyrenaics, who looked only at the present enjoyment. 
Like Aristotle, too, he makes happiness and virtue to be 
inseparably connected ; — a life of true pleasure must he a 
virtuous life (Diog. L. x. 132). Epicurus, moreover, places 
the highest pleasure, not in corporeal gratifications, but in 
mental, since the former pass away in the moment of their 
existence, but the latter endure and are for the past and the 
future, as well as the present. 

This mental pleasure arises from some past corporeal 
pleasure remembered afterwards, or from some like pleas- 
ure anticipated in the future. At least so Cicero repre- 
sents him (De. Ein. i. 7, 17, ii. 30). But this is doubtful. 
That the senses are the chief inlet of happiness, he doubt- 
less did teach. The strictest temperance is enjoined, how- 
ever, in order to the full enjoyment of even the pleasures 
of the senses. Epicurus lived plainly, dispensed with all 
luxuries ; is averse to costly pleasures as injurious, is content 
with little ; give him barley bread, and water from the 
spring, and he will rival Jupiter in happiness. He would 
not limit man to the fewest possible enjoyments, but rather 
multiply those enjoyments ; but he must be able to live upon 
little, in order to this. Contentedness with a little he 
regards as a great good, and mahes wealth consist, not iisi 

GKEAT POSSESSIONS, but in SMALL WAi^TS. 

As to pain : it cannot be dispensed with altogether, and 
the only alternative is to make as little of it as possible, 
and to ignore it as far as may be. He regards pleasure as 
greatly predominant over pain, even in periods of lingering 
sickness. Ever3rthing which is not pain is put to the ac- 
count of pleasure ; and the tru:st pleasure is the repose of 
the soul, freedom from agitation and mental disturbance. 



h 



174 THE EPICUEEANS, 

When everything else fails, death is at least the end of all 
misery, and so ought not to be feared. " For while we live 
death is not, and when death is we are not ; when it is we 
feel it not, for it is the end of all feeling " (Diog. L. x. 
124 ; Lucret. iii. 842, seq.). 

It is but a meagre philosophy indeed, that can console 
ns under misfortune, not by the promise of some great 
gain and future good, but only by holding out the expecta- 
tion of a final and irremediable loss ; not by the hope of 
Immortality, but only of that dreary blank which ends our 
pains only by ending our pleasures. Still we see in this 
philosophy only a prevalent form of that scepticism which 
was the natural growth of the times, and, in some sense, 
the natural result of preceding systems of doctrine, rather 
than the peculiar characteristic of this philosopher or of 
his school. He divides philosophy into Canonics or 
Logic, Physics, and Ethics (Diog. L. x. 29). Logic 
merely introductory to Physics (Diog. L. x. 30 ; Cic. Acad, 
ii. 30 ; De Fin. i. 7). With respect to sensation. Every 
sensation is true, says Epicurus, for it is a motion pro- 
duced in the mind by something else, to which nothing 
can be added, and from which nothing can be taken away. 
But what tlie sensible is which produces the sensation is 
another question ; tliat we do not learn in sensation itself. 
Sensation is to be carefully distinguished from its exciting 
cause, and also from the opinions and conclusions of our 
own minds respecting them. This was the doctrine of 
Aristotle also — likewise of Eeid and the Scotch school, you 
will say. Precisely, I reply. There is nothing xibsolutely 
ncAV under the sun. The newest thing is at least two 
thousand years old. 

By sensations, says Epicurus, we know not things them- 
selves, but only certain accidents of things, certain qualities. 
Yet the sensations have some resemblance to the external 
objects (see pp. 161, 167 ; Diog. L. x. 31. seq.; Sext. Emp. 
adv. Math. vii. 203 ; Cic. Acad. ii. 25, 32). Beside sensation* 



THE EPICUEEANS. 175 

Epicurus makes conception a criterion of truth, i. e., the 
recollection of many previous phenomena produced by sen- 
suous impressions from without. Memory takes its place 
beside sensation, then, eyen in cognition. All inyestiga- 
tion remounts to such conception based on memory ; all 
general thoughts resolye into sensations or the remembrance 
of them. All conceptions are, like all sensations, true. 
Error is possible in opinion formed upon sensation, but not 
in sensation itself, e. g., a distant tower seems round — com- 
ing nearer we find it to be square ; however, the first sensa- 
tion was true; i. e., it seems round, but our opinion was 
wrong, i. e. , it is not round in reality, as we thought it to be 
(Diog'. L. X. 33 seq.j Sext. Emp. ady. Math. yii. 211. seq.; 
Oic. Acad, as above ; also De Nat. Deor. i. 16, 17, 20). In 
all investigation words in their primary significations are the 
main elements to be regarded. Dialectic, or the art of 
syllogistic reasoning, he rejects. Cicero complains of liis 
logic as deficient in many respects (De Ein. i. 7, 22). 
Mathematics also he rejects (Cic. de Ein. vii. 21, 71). In 
physiology Epicurus adopts the atomic theory of Democ- 
ritus. The atoms are infinite in number, moving in an 
infinite vacuum, and from eternity precipitated downward. 
These atoms, colliding with and repelling each other, 
produce a rebounding motion. They combine together 
and form worlds ad lihitum. No need of any external 
ordering and producing power on this theory, No need 
of gods to do what is done as well without. It is not true, 
he says, that in physics, every regularly occurring phe- 
nomenon is brought about by some laiOy for the same thing 
may have at one time one cause, at another, another, and 
every possible cause may be admitted as a sufficient ex- 
planation of any natural event. 

The soul is corporeal in a sort, as is indeed, everything 
except vacuum^ a space (Diog. L. x. 67). As it animates the 
whole body, it must be diffused tlirougli the ivTiole^ of course 
(modern Scotch again). It is invisible, but suffers many 



1! 



176 THE EPICUEEAITS. 

changes, consists of round and smooth atoms, which move 
easily (Diog. x. 63). He compares it to a breath united to 
a certain degree of warmth. In death these atoms are 
scattered, and we no longer exist (Diog. L. x. 64 ; Lucret. 
iii. 418). The soal has four activities ; gives rise to motion, 
to repose, to warmth, to sensation, each produced by a dis- 
tinct element in the composition of the soul — motion by 
breath, repose by air, warmth by fire, etc. Body and soul 
are mutally dependent, neither existing without the other. 
The soul, being composite, admits of decomposition when 
the body, which is its protection and covering, is dissolved. 
Sensation is produced by the emanation from all bodies of 
certain effluxes or corporeal images which enter through 
the organs of sense, and in that way we get our conceptions. 
All sensations and perceptions are true, because they cor- 
respond to these images. This is also the doctrine of 
Democritus. The theology of Epicurus is obscure. The 
Stoics call him an atheist (Cic. ISTat. Deor. i. 30-44). He 
admits the existence of gods of human form, but free from 
human imperfections and wants, given to supreme repose, 
troubling not themselves or mortals with any disposition 
to interfere in human affairs. The world is too imperfect 
to be their work — ^nor it is consistent with their repose and 
dignity to create such a world (Diog. L. x. 39, 76, 77 ; 
Cic. ]!!^at. Deor. i. 9-16). Much of the popular belief in 
gods he regards as superstition. Such is a brief outline of 
the philosophy of this somewhat distinguished, and, we 
must confess, much calumniated sect. 



THE STOICS. 177 

CHAPTER III. 

THE STOICS. 

The degeneracy of the times, the general corruption of 
morals, the softness and effeminacy of Epicureanism, the 
indifference of scepticism, the fading out of the earlier 
Greek earnestness of character and energy of soul, the 
waning national courage and patriotism and spirit — these 
influences combined cast a deep shadow over the period 
of Grrecian history as connected with Grecian philosophy 
which is now passing under our review. But these influ- 
ences, though widely prevalent and almost universal, were 
not altogether unresisted. There did arise in certain 
Greek minds a feeling of indignant resentment at the gen- 
eral spirit of the age and irresistible current of events. 
By the law of opposites, there arose a sect antagonistic to 
all this, planting itself firmly on the opposite extreme, and 
battling to the last, on the field of acknowledged defeat, 
against influences and opinions which were destined to pre- 
vail over all opposition. 

Such a sect were the Stoics, who considered themselves 
followers of Socrates. The leader of these, Zeno of 
Citium, a small city in the island of Cyprus. He was bom 
about 350 B. c. His father was a merchant, and he him- 
self (Diog. L. vii. 1, 2, 5) was early engaged in mercantile 
pursuits ; but in after years, losing his all by shipwreck on 
a voyage to Athens, he betook himself in that city to phi- 
losophy, to which his mind had already received a bias 
while yet in earlier youth, from the perusal of some wi'it- 
ings of the Socratic teachers, especially Xenophon's Me- 
morabilia and Plato's Apology (Diog. L. vii. 3). The life of 
a Cynic fell in with the circumstances and feelings of a 
shipwrecked and penniless voyager, and he sought the in- 



178 THE STOICS. 

striictions of that school ; not fully satisfied there, he be- 
came subsequently a pupil of the Megarean philosophy, 
and afterward of the Academy. Twenty years were spent 
in these studies, There was a place in Athens where poets 
had, in palmier days, been accustomed to convene for the 
purpose of reciting their inspirations — the Variegated 
Porch. It now stood empty. There Zeno opened a school 
in philosophy, 310 B. c, and seems to have gathered 
around him many disciples. It was not looked upon with 
fayor by the community, who regarded it as a sort of con- 
tinuation of the Cynic sect, and it had few converts among 
the wealthier classes, but was frequented mostly by the 
poor. Over this school Zeno presided fifty-eight years, 
(Diog. L. vii. 28, citing Apollonius), and at last put an end 
to his own life. Temperate, frugal, abstemious, living 
upon a spare and meagre diet, he enjoyed the reputation, 
not only of severe morality and strict virtue, but of remark- 
able integrity, so much so that Athens intrusted to him 
the keys of her gates, and at his death erected (Diog. L. 
vii. 6) a tomb and a monument of brass in his honor, 
bearing for inscription the simple but high eulogium that 
his life had been accordant with his teaching. A few frag- 
ments only of his works have come down to us. His suc- 
cessors were Cleanthes, of Assus in Troas ; of poor parent- 
age, a boxer in early life (Diog. L. vii. 168), working at 
night as a common laborer that he might study by day, 
attaching himself to the doctrines of Zeno, and faithfully 
retaining them in their purity ; finally, like his master, end- 
ing his own existence ; — and after him Ohrysippus, a ;uative 
of Oilicia, 282-209 b. c. ; likewise of poor extraction, but re- 
markable for quickness of apprehension and great sagacitj^, 
a bitter opponent of the Epicurean system and of the new 
Academy, a diligent cultivator of all branches of science, and 
a voluminous writer above all the great names of antiquity. 
His works amounted to 705 ! (Diog. L. vii. 180), not one 
of which, however, has come down to posterity, and which, 



I! 



THE STOIC S» 179 

as might be well conceived, were not remarkable for clear- 
ness or elegance, for care of composition or grace of style. 
It was his custom to produce five hundred lines a day. 

§ 1. — General View of the Stoic Philosophy. 

With regard to the philosophical views of the Stoics, it 
may be observed, in general, that the systems of Plato and 
Aristotle were not, on the whole, sufiBciently simple and 
natural in their method ; were too cumbrous and compli- 
cated to satisfy fully the wants of inquiring minds, espe- 
cially at a period not remarkable for patient investigation 
or profound thought. Some simpler and more direct solu- 
tion of the great problems of human inquiry was demanded. 
The Stoical system grew out of that demand, in part, and 
set itself in a straightforward way to solve the difficulties 
and satisfy the doubts of the human mind on the most 
abstruse and important as well as difficult subjects. It 
takes decidedly a practical and common sense view of things ; 
bases itself in part on that sound common sense which 
governs men in practical life ; appeals to the current opin- 
ions and prevailing views of men ; connects itself intimately 
with the practical duties of life ; combats the notion that a 
life of solitude and contemplation is best for the sage ; de- 
mands a life of activity and virtue ; makes philosophy in 
part to consist in the practice of virtue — that only useful 
art. Science and virtue are thus intimately blended. A 
life of virtue is a life of true science, as both Socrates and 
Plato had taught. Wisdom is the science of divine and 
human things, and philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom. 
As this relates to thought, to knowledge and to practice, 
so accordingly they divide philosophy into physics, ethics, 
and logic (Diog. L. vii. 39, 40, seq.; Pint, de Plac. Phil, 
i. 1 ; Oic. Acad. i. 10, 11). They make the two last sub- 
ordinate to the first, and logic especially so — the hand- 
maiden of the other sciences, the shell of the egg — while 
ethics are the white, and physics the yolk. Plato and Aris- 



. 



■') 



ISO THE STOICS. 

totle would make logic or dialectic the yolk, and physics the 
shell. It is to be noticed, however, that in this deviation 
they followed the already existing tendency of the times, to 
make logic rather the organum of philosophy than phi- 
losophy itself, while, on the other hand, they transferred 
to physics many of the inquiries which had hitherto fallen 
under the department of logic. The cognition of the 
Divine is, in fact, declared to be the great object of 
physics. Under logic, they include grammar and rhetoric. 
They are in fact the founders of grammar, and inventors 
of the terms which designate the different parts of speech. 
Under physics, they treat of whatever is most sublime and 
divine, and discuss mythology, and pagan superstition 
even ; while the domain of ethics is enlarged by practical 
rules of life and treatises on duty and propriety. We shall 
do best to consider separately these several divisions of 
their philosophy. 

§ 2. — Logic of the Stoics. 

Discarding as already obsolete the theories of Plato and 
Aristotle as to the source of ideas, they set out with a 
theory on the whole simple and perspicuous, Under the 
term {(pavraaia), fantasy, or conception, they include the con- 
tents of the consciousness both of man and brute ; the rep- 
resentation of the sensible, and the notion of the non-sen- 
sible — representation by a present object, and also that 
which has the semblance only of being thus caused. Cor- 
responding to the representation (which is a passive affec- 
tion of the soul, and supposes some active object, external, 
as its producing cause), there is also something capable of 
being represented, some <i>avraaT6v for every (pavraaia, and this 
active cause, this (pavraardv, is some external object, which, 
by means of the senses, produces an impression on the soul 
(Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 244, 227. seq.j Diog. L. vii. 
49-54 ; Cic. Acad. i. 11, ii. 6, 24). The soul is originally 
(as others had previously taught), a blank tablet, unwrit- 



THE STOICS. 181 

ten, but ready to be written on. Sensation writes on it 
(Plutarch, de Placit. Phil. iy. 11), thence memory, and as 
the result of memory, analogous sensations, experience. 
So far, they agreed with Aristotle. But they went further, 
and derived from sensation not mere knowledge of phe- 
nomena, but also intellectual thought, thus coinciding here 
with the Epicureans. Science is a firm conyiction, or any 
system of such conyictions, incapable of being shaken by 
argument. The reciprocal action of outward objects and of 
the faculties of the soul giyes rise to cognition and sensa- 
tion. Assent of the mind is subjectiye and voluntary ; 
and yet sensuous impressions may constrain it. The idea 
in the soul produced by an outward object is a passive 
affection, but reveals ii^' cause, just as light shows not only 
itself, but the objects which it illumines. This manifes- 
tation of objects by sense, they say, leads at once and of 
necessity to the judgment that such objects have real ex- 
istence.* But how are we to distinguish the false from 
the true, since all are not equally credible and veritable ? 
Since all knowledge results from sensation ultimately, and 
there is no higher faculty to sit in judgment on the repre- 
sentations of sense, evidently the only criterion of truth 
must be found in these representations themselves. This 
seems to have been the distinctness of the sensuous impres- 
sions. But how can the representation express what is in 
the object f Answer : It is a sort of copy of that object, 
formed in the soul like the impression of the soul left on 
wax. Chrysippus, however, objects to this view on the 
ground thut many ideas may exist in the soul at one time, 
just as many sounds in the air, which could not be on the 
above supposition. His explanation is simply this, that an 
idea is a modification of the soul by some outward object ; 
further than this, the matter is inexplicable (Sext. Emp. 
adv. Math. vii. 228). With the Stoics ideas are merely 
conceptions, have no existence out of our minds (Plut. de 

* The doctrine of Reid and tlie Scottish School. 



182 THE STOICS. 

Plac. Phil. i. 10). In this they differed from Plato. They 
distinguished two kinds of the true — the sensible, and the 
intelligible. 

They distinguished also between the true and truth. 
Truth is in essence corporeal, as is all true substance, 
while the true is incorporeal. The number of categories 
with them was four : (a) the substrate, lying at the foun- 
dation — the ground of things ; {h) that which has a 
quality ; (c) that which has some general relation ; {d) 
that which has some particular relation, as the terms 
father and son, right and left, relations which change 
with change of circumstances. To these four categories 
the four parts of speech correspond, the article, noun, 
verb, and conjunction. The Stoics were nominalists. 

§ 3. — Their Physics. 

The Stoics regarded everything as material or corporeal, 
following out the tendency of the Aristotelian system in 
this ; hence physics were of so much importance in their 
philosophy. The}^ derived their views on this subject, how- 
ever, mostly from Heraclitus and the earlier, or pre-Socratic 
philosophers. Of incorporeal things there are four kinds : 
vacuum, place, time, the inexpressible. Body with them 
is not simply the extended in three directions, but something, 
moreover, which is active or passive. Virtue and vice, 
the thoughts and dispositions and faculties of the soul, and 
faculties of the body, the seasons, day and night — all such 
things are bodies ; whatever has a property, and even proper- 
ties themselves, are bodies. They do not accordingly dis- 
tinguish between a thing and its properties. The property 
is with them the body itself. The passive, as a ground of 
things, is matter without property or quality. The 
active is God in matter (Diog. L. vii. 134 ; Seneca Epist. 
Ixv. 2; Cic. Acad. i. 11; De Nat. Deor. i. 14, ii. 8, 9). Mat- 
ter is the i^rimary subject, and universal essence, yet insep- 
arable from the active force. The world is simply the 



THE STOICS. 183 

substance or matter of God. If the uniyerse were to pass 
away, both matter and God would remain. The dissolution 
of heaven and earth is merely the resumption of all into 
himself again by Deity, from whom they first proceeded. 
The diyine Spirit, as also the human, is conceived by them- 
as a force inherent in matter, rather than as a nous or 
intelligence subsisting apart. God and matter are one. 
Viewed in one aspect, as passive, it is matter ; in another, 
as active, it is God. They regard God also as the universal 
reason, pervading all as the soul does the body, governing 
all, providing for all, wise, source of natural law, punishing 
the evil, rewarding the good, perfect, and conscious of feli- 
city. This soul of the world is destiny, moreover ; and is 
associated by the Stoics with the idea of vital heat in the 
body — the breath, the artistic fire, the ether (Cic. de Nat. 
Deor. ii. 9), also called spirit, Twevixa (ii. 14, Diog. L. vii. 
139). He is distinct from the world in a subordinate sense, 
as producer, fashioner, disposer of it, according to the 
universal law of reason (Cic. de N"at. Deor., as above, 9, 14, 
22; Diog. L. vii. 134, 147-156, seq.), as the active and 
passive are different, as soul and body are different, yet 
one life, nnity of being. This development of soul or 
active force, as fire in the world, etc., proceeds through 
certain fixed gradations and periods and finally returns 
into itself or God, and closes with a grand conflagration 
(Oic. de ISTat. Deor. ii. 46 ; Plut. de Stoic. Kepugn. 41 ; 
Diog. L. vii. 142). It is a period in the divine life, having 
its beginning and end. In the world evil will always exist, 
but in the final conflagration will cease. The development 
of things and worlds is one which will continue in succes- 
sive formations, precisely like the preceding ones ; all 
returns, comes round again by the same old laws as before. 
As to the existence of evil. God wills not war, dis- 
ease, etc., but they come in consequence of the good which 
he does will. Moral evil, which is real evil, is necessary for 
the perfection of the world. God wills it not ; for law 



t" 



184 THE STOICS. 

never sanctions its own infraction ; but lie wills that of 
which evil is the necessary consequence. Without evil, good 
could not be ; so that it is neither possible nor expedient 
to get rid of it altogether. Nothing can exist without its 
contrary, as Heraclitus taught ; not even good without evil. 
If there were no such thing as injustice, there could be no 
justice ; nor courage without cowardice, nor truth if there 
were no falsehood, etc. 

With respect to inferior deities, the Stoics defended 
the popular superstitions and beliefs against the current 
scepticism of the day. 

The world, as being the work of Grod, must needs be 
beautiful, for the divine act is not to realize the useful only, 
but the beautiful also. Variety, multiplicity, diversity, is 
the rule of beauty. Hence the wonderful diversity of nature, 
who, in all her works, never repeats herself. The individual 
in the Stoic philosophy exists for the universal ; brutes for 
the service of man ; plants and inferior animals for brutes ; 
man for the gods ; the gods for society, for the whole, for 
each other. 

The four elements are derived originally from the 
primary fire, which, condensed, becomes air, which further 
condensed, water ; which, still by condensation, becomes 
earth, but by rarefaction and evaporation goes back to air 
again, and so finally becomes fire. This process is set in 
operation by precipitation, which, commencing at the 
centre, extinguishes the adjacent fire, but the surrounding 
fire combats it, and by the contending fires the universe is 
founded. Of these elements, earth is in the centre, water at 
circumference, air next, and highest is fire, which embraces 
and surrounds the whole. 

All individual objects are compositions of these ele- 
ments. Inanimate objects have but one property, and 
that oneness of quality is what binds them together ; plants 
and animals, many, and are held together, the former by 
their ^^ nature," the latter by their soul. Individual souls. 



THE STOICS. 185 

being a part of tlie mundaiie soul, are not immortal strictly, 
but will subsist after death, till the final conflagration, 
when absorbed into the divine (Diog. L. yii. 157). Chry- 
sippns taught that only the wise and good would survive 
death. The human soul is a breath inborn, pervading the 
whole body (Diog. L. vii. 159), a fiery spirit (Oic. de Nat. 
Deor. iii. 14 ; Tusc. Qusest. i. 9). There is a ruling principle 
in the soul, which directs and governs it, the subject or 
ego, the reason or intelligence, the seat of which is in the 
heart. There are eight parts of the soul : the ruling 
portion in the heart, five operating in the organs of sense, 
one in the organ of voice, one in the organs of generation 
(Plut. de Plac. Phil. iv. 4 ; Diog. L. vii. 157, seq.). Every 
appetite, desire, lust, is an opinion, knowledge incompletely 
developed. The soul is not capi^iciously moved, not by 
chance, but by motives ; though sometimes the motive 
which strikes the balance is unperceived. By the freedom 
of the soul, they understand the assent which it gives to 
certain ideas, not arbitrarily but according to its nature ; 
still, in so acting, we go according to destiny, a universal 
fate, just as a stone, rolling down hill, receives its first 
impulse from without, but the course depends afterward 
on its weight and figure. The liberty of things is simply 
the law of their nature ; but the law of individual nature 
is dependent on the nature of all. 

§ 4. — Their Ethics. 

Nature is the ground of right ; yet, as God and nature 
are one, the divine reason is the ground of right (Diog. L. 
vii. 88, 89, seq.; Tusc. Qusest. iv. 13, 15; De Off. i. 5 ; Pin. 
iii. 7, 9, 15, 18) ; and physics is the ground of ethics, 
according to the Stoical philosophy. A virtuous life is a 
life conformable to nature (Diog. L. vii. 87), or in harmony 
with one's self, as Zeno expresses it. All virtue is founded 
in instinct, a certain natural propensity of the soul. This 
instinct in man is developed according to the reason, and 



' ^- 



ISO THE STOICS. 

in this differs from that of brutes. It is the assent which 
he gives to a particular re^Dresentation, or the idea of good 
determining him to action. Follow nature, then, is their 
ultimate principle of ethics. A life agreeable to nature is 
one in which all the elements of the individual life are in 
perfect harmony (Diog. L. vii. 87-89 ; Oic. de Fin. iii. 6, 
7 ; Acad. i. 10. ii. 45). The model for this is that ani- 
mal state, or state of nature as we say, in which, as yet, 
life is not spoiled by custom, law, habit, etc. Pleasure 
was of no account with the Stoics, not the end of nature, 
without moral value, a mere passive state of soul. The 
morality of a deed lies not in the outward act, but in the 
volition ; consequences, works, are not to be regarded ; 
vif'hie alone is good ; he who has it wants nothing, though 
destitute of all things. Still, health, wealth, etc., though 
not good, and without real value, nevertheless (by a refined 
distinction), are prefer aile to other things, as sickness, pov- 
erty, etc., and so the sage may choose them of the two, 
when he can (Diog. L. vii. 101-107 ; Oic. de Fin. iii. 3, 
15, 16 ; Sext. Emp. adv. Math. ix. 59-67, 73, 77). Self-pre- 
servation is the instinct of nature, and so due regard must be 
paid to life, health, etc., as well as to knowledge of things. 
These objects are ^^ the^r^^ things according to nature^^ of 
the Stoics ; opposed to which are disease, weakness, deform- 
ity, etc. Self-love, or love of existence, is, then, the founda- 
tion of moral action. There is a period in life when reason 
awakens and takes command of the soul and all its impulses. 
If under this guidance, the soul is wlioUy good ; if without 
it, wholly evil. There is no medium. Four things indis- 
pensable to virtue : knowledge of good and evil, temper- 
ance, fortitude, justice. Man cannot wrong himself, nor 
other animals, for they exist only for his good. The per- 
fection of humanity is a state of apathy — freedom from the 
emotions, of which the chief forms are desire, fear, joy, 
sorrow ; complete mastery of these, so as not to be governed 
by them (Oic. Tusc. iii. 9, iv. 9 ; Acad. i. 10, ii. 47 ; De 



THE STOICS. 187 

Fin. iii. 7, 10). There is a difference between the merely 
befitting, and duty, which is the befitting according to 
reason — the act of walking may be befitting, though not a 
duty unless some moral end in yiew; or perfect and imjoer- 
fect duties. The sage is superior to law and custom ; like 
Zeus himself, his own law. So long as the motiye is not 
selfish or voluptuous, he may do almost anything : lying, 
suicide, prostitution ; entire disregard for customs of society 
are allowable, with that limitation only. The sage is one 
who cannot err, and whom reason neyer fails — a character, 
in fact, nowhere to be found. Such, in brief, are Stoic 
ethics and philosophy. 

§ 5. — General Estimate of the System. 

In forming a general estimate of the system which has 
now passed under review, it is impossible to deny it a very 
high, possibly the very highest, place among the ethical 
systems of ancient philosophy. As a system of pure and 
elevated morals, it has perhaps no superior among them 
all ; yet its defects are by no means to be overlooked. The 
very elevation of its standard, the very loftiness of its ideal, 
rendered it, in a measure, ill suited to the ordinary condi- 
tions of humanity. As has been well remarked by Lecky, 
in his History of European Morals (vol. i. p. 204:-5) : "A 
moral system, to govern society, must accommodate itself 
to common character and mingled motives. It must be 
capable of influencing natures that can never rise to an 
heroic level. But Stoicism was simply a school of heroes. 
It recognized no gradations of virtue or vice. It con- 
demned all emotions, all spontaneity, all mingled motives, 
all the principles, feelings, and influences, upon which the 
virtue of common men mainly depends. It was capable 
of acting only on moral natures that were strung to the 
highest tension, and it was therefore naturally rejected by 
the multitude." The principle of self -approbation, the 
essential inherent dignity of man, constitute the centra- 



188 THE STOICS. 

idea of the system. A life of virtue is to be pursued, 
because such a life alone is consistent with this self-appro- 
bation, and this inherent dignity. Of sin, in the Christian 
sense, and of repentance for sin, it has no idea. It would 
deter men from evil by appeals to their pride and self- 
respect. These are its highest motives, its prevailing 
influences. The e7notional part of our nature — and this is 
one of the most serious defects of the Stoic system — it dis- 
courages, and seeks in every way to repress. All feeling, 
sensibility, emotion, the joys and sorrows that agitate the 
human heart, it regards as unworthy the true man. There 
must be no tears over our own losses, no sympathy with 
the bereavements of others ; but calm and lofty indiffer- 
ence to the gifts of fortune and all human ills. It would 
train us to self-reliance and complete self-control, as the 
goal of human endeavor, the ideal of human excellence. 
And if at length the burdens and the ills of life are such 
as can no longer be borne, one method of escape is always 
in our power, we have but to put forth our hand, write 
JlniSj and close the volume. 

Yet I know not where to find, even among Christian 
writers, loftier sentiments than abound in the writings of 
the later Stoics. The excellence of virtue, for its own 
sake and not merely for the advantages it brings ; of virtue 
concealed from the world, and known only to the peaceful 
soul that in obscurity and silence cherishes and adores 
it ; the greatness of a soul calm and self-reliant under all 
the storms of adversity, the duty of uncomplaining sub- 
mission to the Divine will — these and the like virtues are 
even more earnestly and beautifully set forth in the pages 
of Epictetus and Seneca, of Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus 
Pius, than in those of the Christian fathers. *' Nothing 
for opinion, all for conscience," says Seneca (De Vit. Beat. 
c. XX.) ; "He who wishes his virtue to be blazed abroad 
is not laboring for virtue, but for fame " (Ep. cxiii). A 
great man is none the less great, when he lies vanquished 



THE STOICS. . 189 

and prostrate in the dust (Cons, ad Helv. xiii.). ^' Never 
forget/' says Marcus Aurelius, '' that it is possible to be at 
once a divine man^ yet a man unknown to all the world " 
(Marc. Anr. vii. 67). "To ask to be paid for virtue, is as 
if the eye demanded a recompense for seeing, or the feet 
for walking " (ix. 42). Nor is virtue to be sought merely 
for its advantages. " Non dux, sed comes, voluptas,''^ says 
Seneca ; " pleasure is not to be our leader, but our com- 
danion ; " and again " Voluptas non est merces, nee causa 
virtutis, sed accessio;" "pleasure is not the reward nor 
the cause of virtue, but its incidental acquisition " (De Vit. 
Beat. c. viii. ix.). "Misfortunes, and losses, and calamity, 
disappear before virtue as the taper before the sun" 
(Seneca Ep. Ixvi.). In the Stoic theology, the soul of man 
is but "a detached fragment of the Deity"; hence its 
best impulses and efforts are of divine origin or inspiration. 
"Nothing is closed to God," said Seneca. "He is present 
in our conscience. He intervenes in our thoughts" (Ep. 
Ixxxiii.). "I tell thee, Lucilius, a sacred spirit dwells 
within us, the observer and the guardian of our good and 
evil deeds. . . . No man is good without G-od" (Ep. xii.). 
To the allotments of Providence the Stoic philosophy 
enjoins an unquestioning and uncomplaining submission. 
" To fear, to grieve, to be angry, is to be a deserter," says 
Marcus Aurelius. "Eemember you are but an actor," 
says Epictetus, "acting whatever part the Master has 
ordained. It may be short, or it may be long. If he wishes 
you to represent a poor man, do so heartily ; if a cripple, 
or a magistrate, or a private man, in each case act your 
part with honor " Ench. (xvii. ). Never say of anything that 
you have lost it, but that you have restored it ; your wife 
and child die — you have restored them ; your farm is taken 
from you — that also is restored. It is seized by an impious 
man. "What is it to you, by whose instrumentality he 
who gave it reclaims it" (Epict. Ench. xi.). "God does 
not keep a good man in prosperity," says Seneca; "He 



190 . THE KEW ACADEMY. 

tries, He strengthens him, He prepares him for Himself '' 
(De Prov, i). As we listen to such sentiments, it is difficult 
to persuade ourselves that they are the precepts of a 
pagan philosophy, and not the meditations of some deyout 
monk of the middle ages. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE NEW ACADEMY. 

We are approaching the close of the history of G-reek 
philosophy. The great systems, of which we have already 
spoken, stand forth as the almost complete embodiment of 
that history. Nothing worthy of the name of a system is 
added to them afterward, but only such modifications of 
them are made as would adapt them to the tendencies and 
habits of thought which characterized the times. The New 
Academy, as it was termed, somewhat later than the founda- 
tion of the Epicurean and Stoic schools in its origin, pre- 
sents the principal of these modifications of earlier systems. 
As the name indicates, it was a school attaching itself to 
the Platonic system in its main features, while it modified 
the views and widely departed from the earlier spirit of 
that system. 

§ 1. — Founder of the School. 

The author of this new school was Arcesilaus of Pitane, 
born 315 B. c. ; at first given to oratory, afterward to phi- 
losophy, under Theophrastus and Polemo, also the sceptic 
Pyrrho. He seems to have considered himself a good 
Platonist ; like Plato manifests great respect for the earlier 
philosophers. Into the Academy he introduces the old 
Socratic method of teaching by dialogue. He is highly 
praised for his smooth, ready, and flowing eloquence ; did 
not commit his doctrines to writing. His views, learned 



THE KEW ACADEMY. 191 

mostly from works of Ms opponents. According to the 
statements of these persons, a perfect scepticism would 
seem to be the main result of his speculations. He knows 
nothing ; not eyen his own ignorance, which even Socrates 
admitted that he knew. He denied the certainty, both of 
intellectual and sensuous knowledge (Cic. de Orat. iii. 18, 
67). He attacks yigorously the Stoics, who were his chief 
opponents. With Plato, he appeals to the uncertainty of 
the senses, which declare opposite things of the same 
object, and cannot reveal the true nature of things. He 
sets forth the mutual inconsistencies and contradictions of 
the different philosophic systems. Still his scepticism 
assumes a practical direction. Men should study, not 
works of art, etc., but their own lives and conduct, which 
are the most instructive objects of science. 

Hence nothing is known for certainty of the real exist- 
ence and nature of things ; our Icnowledge falls of course 
into the domain of the probable, and we do well to suspend 
our judgment (Cic. Acad. Quaest. ii. 24, i. 12 ; Sext. Emp. 
adv. Math. vii. 150, 154, 108). In the pursuit of good we 
must be guided by probabilities. In this, the New Academy 
differs from the Sceptics, who made the end of life to be the 
attainment of a perfect equanimity, and the difference of 
good and bad to be the result of convention, not of nature. 
The New Academy, on the contrary, allowed the sage to 
conform more nearly to the customs of society, observe its 
decencies and proprieties, without mortifying entirely his 
natural passions and desires, or bursting away entirely from 
the bonds and restraints of civilized life. Arcesilaus is said 
to have been rather inclined even to luxury, and, as the 
story goes, killed himself at seventy-five by hard, drinking. 

§ 3. — His Successor. 

His only distinguished successor was Cameades of 
Cyrene ; born 213 B. c. ; carefully instructed in the princi- 
ples of the New Academy, and also in those of the Stoics. 



192 THE l^EW ACADEMY. 

Learned in the history of philosophy, he seems to have 
labored mostly to refute the positions of all the systems of 
philosophy, but chiefly the Stoical. His reputation rests 
chiefly on his refutation of the latter. **Had there never 
been a Chrysippus, I never should have been what I am." 
JSToted for his eloquence, on account of which he was 
chosen one of the ambassadors to Eome on a certain 
occasion, where he enchanted multitudes, chiefly young 
men, by his powers of oratory. He discoursed one day — 
when Oato, the stern, stoic Eoman, was present — on jus- 
tice : setting forth in such lofty tones its praise, that the 
old Eoman grimly smiled. Next day, however, he showed 
the falsity of all his preceding arguments, and Cato's brow 
grew dark. So much was the stout old Eoman troubled 
that he persuaded the Senate to dismiss the G-recians with 
all despatch, lest the youth of Eome should be hopelessly 
corrupted. He generally presented both sides of every 
question, insomuch that his most trusty pupil admitted 
he could never discover what was, on any subject, the real 
opinion of his master. 

He attacks the doctrine of the Stoics respecting the 
being and nature of God, and their defence of the popular 
superstitions and mythologies ; he shows the folly of as- 
cribing human form to the Deity (Cic. de Nat. Deor. iii. 
12 ; Sext. adv. Math. ix. 138, 140). He also attacks the 
Stoic doctrine of necessity versus free-will. Practical life 
he regarded as an art. He takes a nobler view of humanity 
than Aristippus, but less noble than the Stoics. Justice is, 
according to him, a mere civil institution, not a natu7'al 
one (Cic. Eepub. iii. 15, 24), since not identical everywhere, 
but varying in different states and at different times in 
the same state — hence not a virtue, for virtue is one and 
invariable. Prudence and justice are often at variance ; 
often imprudent, for states to be just. Justice has its 
source in the weakness of man, who, in order to protect 
himself from injury, abstains from inflicting it on others. 



THE NEW ACADEMY. 193 

The soYereign good is " enjoyment of the gifts of nature/' 
'^ union of yirtue and happiness," and the like aniLiguous 
expressions (Cic. Tusc. v. 30, 84). It is impossible to find 
any criterion of truth. If any, it must be either in sensa- 
tion, conception, or reason. But reason deals only with 
objects first presented to it through conception, and this 
latter only with objects of sense ; so that all comes back to 
sensation, which is notoriously untrustworthy, and carries 
false tidings, like an unfaithful messenger. Still eyen as 
to this scepticism he is sceptical ; does not afifirm positiyel}^, 
but doubts, questions, denies. His theory of probability is 
somewhat noticeable. There is no certainty of anything, 
only probability (Cic. , Acad. Qusest. ii. 24, i. 12 ; Sext. 
Emp. ady. Math. yii. 150, 154, 408). We choose between 
opposite courses of conduct, not by blind impulse or neces- 
sity, but according to higher or lower degrees of probabil- 
ity. Eyery idea has two relations : one to the object, one 
to the subject, or the mind that conceiyes it. In the first 
case it is true or false, as it agrees or not with the object, and 
this we can neyer know. In the latter relation it appears 
true or not true ; that is, it is prodadle or improlaUe ; and 
it is of importance to determine which, for our conduct 
proceeds on this principle. An idea is probable, according 
as it proceeds from a perception which is inyariable and 
unquestioned ; and if, on thorough examination, nothing be 
found to contradict it. Carneades recommends the study 
of philosophy as the best and only road to oratory. 

§. 3 — Subsequent Fortunes of the School. 

Carneades was the last distinguished name of the New 
Academy. It began, after him, to decline and fall into 
disrepute. Philosophy, both with the Academy and the 
Porch, became less profound, more erudite, more artistical, 
more popular, more sceptical. This tendency shows the 
degradation of the science and of the age. The differences 
between the Academy and the Porch became less clearly 
defined^ and a sort of eclecticism grew up, and semi-coneili- 



' I 



194 THE KEW ACADEMY. 

ation and agreement between the two, the Stoics growing 
more mild, and also more sceptical, as time passed on. 
Efforts were indeed made to restore the Academy again to 
its pristine purity, to bring it back to the doctrines of 
Plato and Aristotle, but with little other than merely tem- 
porary success. Antiochus, pupil of Pliilo, is noted for his 
labors to this end. Meanwhile, alongside of the Academy 
and the Porch, the Epicurean philosophy now became 
almost obsolete, and the Aristotelian became quite so, 
dragged out a feeble existence represented by here and 
there a disciple. And so we reach the close of that period 
and movement which, commencing with Socrates, shed such 
lustre on the Greek — ^nay more, on the human mind. It 
is with melancholy interest that we take leave of Grecian 
philosophy ; that we see it gradually losing its hold on the 
mind, as corruption and decay become more and more prev- 
alent, until finally its brilliant light, which Socrates and 
Plato kindled, and Aristotle with a master's hand had 
trimmed and nourished, dwindles before our eyes into a 
dim and solitary taper, and finally goes out in darkness on a 
nation no longer worthy of his beams. 

What was the result, now, of all these profound inves- 
tigations from Thales downward ? '* Scepticism," says 
Lewes. ^^ Centuries of thought had not advanced the 
mind one step nearer to a solution of the problem with 
which, child-like, it began ; it degan tvitli a child-like ques- 
tion ; it ended with an aged douM.^^ *' "Was then all this 
labor in vain ? Were these long, laborious years all wasted ? 
Were those splendid minds all useless ? ISTo ! Human en- 
deavor is seldom without fruit. Those centuries of specu- 
lation were not useless. They were the education of the 
human race. They taught man's mind this truth at least : 
The infinite cannot be known by the finite ; man can only 
know phenomena." To this view, eloquent as it is, we 
should somewhat demur ; for Lewes is himself a sceptic 
as to the possibility of any solid results in philosophy. We 



KOXAJST PHILOSOPHY. 195 

would not take so sad and sombre and despairing a yiew of 
tlie labors of these old Grecians. They are the germ of 
modern philosophy, the seeds of things, the dawn of a 
brighter, higher day, that shines on ns ; our eyes behold 
what these old kings and prophets of the mental world 
desired to see, but died without the sight. Let us not for- 
get our debt of gratitude to these first inquirers, these 
patient thinkers, these ancient masters. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE GKEEK PHlioSOPHY AMOiN'G THE ROMAKS. 

It remains only to notice the effect of G-reek philosophy 
upon foreign nations ; and of these I shall select only the 
Eoman, as the one most directly and fayorably influenced 
by the G-reek mind, and the one with whose history and 
literary remains the student of the present day is most in- 
terested. The Romans, while they conquered Greece, were 
in turn conquered by it ; the Tassal became the master, and 
the master, conscious of inferiority, submitted to willing 
bondage ; became the piqnl and sat at the feet of the slave, 
to learn of him the secret of that higher power which in- 
tellect wields over mere brute force. The literature and 
philosophy of Greece held the Roman mind in complete and 
willing subjection. Even stern old Cato, who sent off the 
Grecian ambassadors, applied himself in his old age to 
learning the Greek language. Such men as Scipio Afri- 
canus and Caius Laelius and L. Eurius were not only 
patrons of Grecian learning, but maintained friendly and 
intimate intercourse with the scholars and philosophers of 
Greece. Eminent lawyers became the disciples of Panse- 
tius, the Stoic and Platonic philosopher. But no one of 
Rome's distinguished men gave himself up with more 



196 ROMAN PHILOSOPHY. 

hearty relish, perhaps, to Grecian erudition and philosophy, 
than Cicero. At the outset, Epicurean doctrines gained 
a popularity in Eome, and found numerous advocates. Sub- 
sequently and in the time of Cicero, the New Academy, 
then in its brightest phase, became more generally the 
preyalent philosophy of the Eomans. The Peripatetic 
doctrines also found adherents when Sylla brought home 
the works of Aristotle. On the whole, the Epicurean, the 
Stoic, and New Academy were the chief schools and favorite 
systems at Rome. The practical turn of the Roman mind 
led them to look with more favor on these schools, as being 
practical rather than speculative systems, as Tennemann 
suggests. The old Academy, however, had such adherents 
as LucuUus, M. Brutus, and Varro, who nevertheless min- 
gled much of the Stoical philosophy with the Platonic. 
The same thing is more or less true of all those Roman dis- 
ciples of Greek philosophy ; they were really eclectics in 
good measure, no one more so than Cicero ; and while 
they believed themselves to belong to this or that par- 
ticular school, unconsciously or purpose^ mingled with 
that the views of other sects, and especially the prevalent 
Stoical doctrines. 

The Stoics gained to their cause most of the learned 
legists and teachers of jurisprudence. Q. Mutius Scsevola, 
C. Aquillius Callus, and L. Lucilius Balbus, distinguished 
compeers of Cicero, were Stoics. So was Servius Sulpicius, 
and, still another, the younger Cato, who contributed more 
than any other to the glory of this school among the 
Romans. At a later period, Seneca, Epictetus, and M. 
Aurelius Antoninus shed honor on this philosophy by their 
writings. On the other hand, Pomponius Atticus, the 
bosom friend of Cicero, and C. Cassius, the conspirator 
against Caesar, were Epicureans ; while as authors, the 
Epicurean school could boast Lucretius, the poet, and 
the sparkling Horace. It was principally, however, by the 
labors of Cicero, that philosophy became domesticated in 



ROMAN PHILOSOPHY. 197 

the Latin tongue. He claims for himself the merit of 
being the first to earn for the Latin language the same 
reputation in philosophy as the Greek had acquired. A 
glance at the philosophical views of Cicero must suffice for 
the whole. Early educated in the philosophy of Greece, ho 
owed to Grecian training whatever he had of intellectual 
culture.* His fame rests, not so much on his political liij 
as on his oratorical efforts and philosophical writings. To 
philosophy, when the ship of state foundered, he again 
devotes himself, in his later years, as a last and only 
resource. His philosophic writings are clear, elegant, pop- 
ular in cast ; never original, but noble in sentiment. He 
professes to follow the New Academy, yet is something of 
a Stoic and mucli a Sceptic. A sober scepticism is the phi- 
losophy accordant with his mind. He was eclectic, however, 
and strictly confined to neither of the three prevalent 
schools. To the Epicureans, in fact, he was decidedly and 
unhesitatingly opposed. He wrote for the people, and 
combined eloquence with philosophy, and especially gives 
his philosophy a practical turn. As to the great problems 
discussed by the schools, he either does not thoroughly 
comprehend them, or thinks them of less difficulty and less 
importance than they really are, for he passes vaguely and 
superficially over most of them. "With regard to morals, he 
is clear and earnest ; as to physics most uncertain and waver- 
ing. He maintains eloquently the doctrines respecting God 
and the human soul, but yet wavers between belief and 
doubt as to the popular religion. He takes lofty views of 

* Cicero studied philosophy at Atlieus and at Rhodes. He heard 
the Epicurean, the Academic, and the Stoic teachers. In later life, he 
turned again to the study of philosophy, as a resource from the ills of 
the state ; as he touchingly says (Tusc. v. 2), while in the early period 
of life, our inclination and love of acquisition compelled us to the 
study of philosophy, so, as a resort from these great calamities, we 
fly again, tempest-tossed, to the same peaceful harbor from which 
we wandered forth. 



198 ROMAN PHILOSOPHY. 

humanity, of yirtue as superior to pleasure, of the dignity 
of human nature, and the excellence of reason ; strongly 
advocates free will. In natural theology, Cicero is clear 
and decided against the fortuitous or accidental origin of 
the present well-ordered system of things. As well throw 
up the letters of the alphabet and expect them to assume, 
in falling, the shape of the Annals of Ennius (De Nat. Deor. 
ii. 37). He attaches importance to those opinions and 
beliefs in matters of theology in which different nations 
and ages agree (Tusc. i. 13), especially the doctrines of a 
superintending Providence and the immortality of the soul 
(Tusc. i. 1. 2, seq. 49). He is lofty and eloquent in praise 
of disinterested virtue (De Fin. ii. 4, v. 22), and the 
dignity of the human mind (Tusc. i. 24, seq. j De Leg. i. 7, 
seq. ) y of a life devoted not to self alone, but to country and 
friends (De Offic. i. 7 ; De Fin. ii. 14) ; and of philosophy 
as the guide of life (Tusc. v. 2 ; Acad. i. 2 ; De Off. ii. 2). 

He defines the morally good — lionestum, as that which 
is praiseworthy, per se : the to Kaiov of the Greeks (De Fin. 
ii. 14 ; De Offic. i. 4), and is inclined, with the Stoics, to 
regard virtue as of itself alone capable of securing happi- 
ness — all else being of little worth in comparison with it 
(De Fin. v. 32 ; De Offic. iii. 3). 

On the whole, we agree with Eitter, that while the 
philosophical writings of Cicero have had not much influ- 
ence on, or been much valued by, prof ounder thinkers, they 
are the foundation of not only Koman philosophy, but of 
that of the later church ; have had great influence on the 
opinions of the middle ages, and of the subsequent literature, 
and have tended powerfully, in a word, to the general en- 
lightenment of mankind. 

While disposed to be something of a sceptic in physics, 
Cicero takes refuge, in matters of practical and ethical 
moment, in the certainty of our moral consciousness, the 
universal consent of nations, and those intuitive concep- 
tions which nature has implanted within us. These are to 



EOMAN PHILOSOPHY. 199 

him a satisfactory ground of conviction and confidence, 
and he does not wish them disturbed by the cavils and 
questions of the mere sceptic, to whom nothing is sacred, 
nothing certain. In theology, he would eliminate what- 
ever is mythical and unworthy of belief, but retain as 
sacred the great truths and beliefs in which all ages and 
people agree, specially the gTand doctrines of a superintend- 
ing providence, and of immortality. Still he holds even 
these beliefs not without some hesitation and question. 

Virtue — the lionestum, the to kumv, is instrinsically and 
per se a good ; good for its own sake ; and is of itself suffi- 
cient to secure happiness — though he comes with some hesi- 
tation to this position of the Stoics. In common with the 
Stoics he rejects the 'irddri — perturbations, as he calls them — 
the passions or disturbing forces and impulses of our nature, 
as unworthy of us, and to be suppressed. 

Cicero's highest ideal of government is one embracing 
the monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements. 
He regards the mass of men as unfit for freedom and self- 
government. He would allow the practice of consulting 
auguries, and similar superstitions, in deference to the pre- 
vailing popular belief. It is when he comes upon those 
great moral truths which the consciousness of man affirms, 
that Cicero rises to his highest and most eloquent utter- 
ances. 

The character of Cicero is well drawn by Ritter in the 
following paragraph : " With the nicest knowledge of 
men and things, without which no orator can be great, he 
combined a fine sense of justice and benevolence, love for 
his friends, who remained true to him through the various 
changes of his fortunes ; unwearying diligence, and a 
shrewd and comprehensive forecast of future events, and 
the inevitable consequences of the present position of 
affairs. To be as great as he was brilliant in political life, 
he only wanted that perfect enthusiasm which is engen- 
dered in the mind by confidence in its own resources, and 



200 JEWISH-ALEXAi^UEIAK PHILOSOPHY. 

resolute firmness in the moment of action. This, however, 
is what indeed at all times is most diflBcult to attain to, 
hut especially in such circumstances and in such an age 
as that of Cicero, when feeling as he did the clearest con- 
yiction that the fortunes of the state were hopeless, such 
bold resolution could only have been purchased by a calm 
spirit of self-denial, which was hardly to be expected of the 
soft and yielding mind of Cicero. We cannot therefore 
wonder if we see him often wavering, often hesitating and 
dissatisfied with himself, unable either to encourage hope 
or to banish fear, ashamed of his unworthy position and 
ambiguous policy, and yet unable to follow out his own 
plans of honorable action. His character and career as 
a politician," Eitter proceeds to remark, ^^ closely accord 
with the part which he played as a philosopher. The same 
qualities which procured him splendor in the political 
world, made him also a brilliant champion and dissemi- 
nator of philosophic labors ; the same defects which, as a 
statesman, deprived him of the highest praise, also pre- 
vented him from being truly great in philosophy. More- 
over, all his philosophical labors were mainly dependent on 
his political life " (Hist. Phil.). 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE JEWISH- ALEXAKDEIAN" PHILOSOPHY ; AIS'D THE 
SUBSEQUENT N"EO-PLATO]S"ISM. 

§ 1. — Jewish-Alexandrian Philosophy. 

About the beginning of the Christian era, or even 
earlier, there arose in the East a school of philosophy, 
mainly theosophic, or theologic, blending the doctrines of 
of Plato with the Jewish theology — the result, in part, of 
the general yearning after some more direct and satisfactory 
knowledge of God than the preceding systems of specula- 



JEWISH-ALEXANDRIAN PHILOSOPHY. 201 



tive thought had been able to attain. Such a desire seems 
to have been yery generally felt in the closing period of 
the ancient, or pre-Christian world. The result of so many 
systems, and so many ages of patient thought and investiga- 
tion, was what ? — a heartless scepticism. To this had come 
the brilliant speculations of the greatest thinkers — scepti- 
cism — eclecticism. N'ot satisfied with this result, men 
turned with restless longing to the systems of Oriental 
theosophy, to see what, perchance, might be learned in that 
quarter of the great problems of human thought and 
human destiny. Chief among these religious systems of 
the East in practical influence on the G-recian mind was 
the Jewish theology, as presented in the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures, and which, as blended with the lofty idealism of 
Plato, formed the philosophy known as the Jewish Hel- 
lenic, or Jewish- Alexandrian system. In common with 
the Neo-Platonists, of whom they were in fact the precur- 
sors, these philosophers opposed the divine to the earthly, 
contemning the material and the sensible, holding the 
descent of the soul from a superior world into the body, 
requiring an ascetic emancipation of the soul from the 
bondage of sense, and believing in a divine revelation to 
man in the state of enthusiasm. 

Germs of this philosophy may be seen, though hardly 
the philosophy itself, in the Septuagint translation of the 
Hebrew Scriptures ; as also in the Second Book of Macca- 
bees, and in the Book of Wisdom (Ueberweg, vol. i. p. 
226). Aristobulus, 160 B. c, finds in the Pentateuch the 
source of much that was taught by Grecian poets and 
philosophers. He personifies the wisdom of God as an 
intermediate essence between God and the world, preex- 
istent before the heavens and the earth. God himself is 
invisible to the eye of sense not only, but to the eye of 
the soul. The nous, or reason, alone perceives him. It is 
the divine power or force that governs the world, and not 
God himself, who is above and beyond all mundane 
9* 



i I 



202 JEWISH-ALEXANDEIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

affairs. The light, wMcli was created on the first day, is 
symbolic of the wisdom which illuminates all things, and 
which Solomon, in the Book of Proverbs, has described as 
existing with God before the Creation. The whole order 
of the world rests on the number seyen. 

But it is in Philo the Jew, that the system now under 
discussion finds its first clear and complete exponent. 
Philo, whose home was at Alexandria, was descended 
from an illustrious family, according to Josephus (Antiq. 
xviii. 8) ; a sacerdotal one, according to Eusebius (Hist. 
Eccl. ii. 4). His brother was superintendent of the Alex- 
andrian library. Philo went as ambassador to Eome in 
40 A. D., then an old man ; so that he was probably born 
some twenty-five or thirty years b. c. Philo interprets the 
Scriptures allegorically. His theology is a blending of 
Platonism and Judaism (Ueberweg, 229). God is the rb bv, 
the only true existence, above all knowledge and all virtue ; 
above even the idea of "t\\Q good," with which Plato iden- 
tifies him. He is one and simple, the only free nature, 
without suffering, grief, or fear ; present everywhere by his 
power though not in his essence. He is the place of the 
world, for he encompasses and contains all things. 

In creating the world, God employs certain ministering 
agencies or potencies, the chief of which is " the logos," 
God's wisdom, or son, through whom he creates the world. 
As the plan of an edifice lies in the mind of the master 
builder, so the world of ideas lies from eternity in the 
mind of the logos. He is the mediator between God and 
man. To imitate God, to become like him, and dwell in 
him, is the highest duty, as it is the highest blessedness, of 
man. All other knowledge is valuable only as a prepara- 
tion for the knowledge of God. The highest aim of phi- 
losophy is this knowledge. 

The logos doctrine of Philo, while closely resembling 
that of the gospel of John, in many respects, differs from 
it, toto ccelOj in this respect : that Philo, with his view of the 



-N^ 



NEW PLATO K ISM. 203 

essential baseness and impurity of matter, cannot conceiye 
of the logos as incarnate in the person of Christ, whicli is 
the distinctiye feature of the Johannean doctrine of the 
logos. 

§ 2.^New Platonism. 

The golden age of G-recian philosophy had already passed 
before the Christian era. Its great names and its illustrious 
systems were remembered as traditions of a former time. 
AYith the advent of Christianity, a new era was ushered in ; 
a new light arose upon the world. Yet not wholly had the 
speculative spirit and tendency died out. As late as the 
third and fourth centuries of the Christian era, an effort 
was made, and with some success, to revive the ancient 
philosophy — a last and almost despairing attempt, as 
Schwegler well characterizes it, of the ancient mind, at a 
philosophy which should solve the great problems of specu- 
lative inquiry. The closing period of Grecian philosophy 
was a revival of Platonism, Neo-Flatonism, as it was 
called. Its chief teachers were Plotinus, a pupil of 
Ammonius Saccas (an Alexandrian philosopher of the 
third century, founder of the Neo Platonic school) ; born at 
Lycopolis in Egypt, in 204 A. D., teacher at Rome from 
244 to 268, died in Campania, in 269 ; and Porphyry, his 
disciple, born in Syria in 232 or 233, educated at Tyre, 
pupil for a time of Longinus, afterward of Plotinus at 
Rom where he lived and taught from 262 till his death, 
about 304 A. D., a clear and vigorous writer, author of 
several treatises, mainly expositions of the writings of Plato 
and Aristotle, and of the system of Plotinus. lamblichus, 
disciple of Porphyry, a native of Chalcis, in Coele-Syria, 
and Proclus, born at Constantinople about 411, disciple 
of Plutarch at Athens, were also eminent as Neo-Platonists. 

The latter was the most distinguished of the later Neo- 
Platonists, and taught with much success at Athens, where 
he died 485 A. D. He collected the whole body of trans- 



>i 



204 NEW PLATONISM. 

mitted pliilosopliy, arrayed it in systematic form, and added 
Avliat he deemed wanting to its completeness. The doc- 
trines of Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists continued to be 
taught at Athens, till the final closing of the school, by 
order of the Emperor Justinian, in 529, who interdicted 
the further teaching of philosophy at Athens. 

The practical tendency of the school was to mysticism. 
Magic, sorcery, divine illumination, ability to foresee the 
future, were claimed and professed. The scepticism of 
the previous and closing period of Grecian philosophic 
thought, led to unrest, and a vague yearning for something 
which should better satisfy the craving of the mind for 
solid and tangible reality. Christianity supplied this want. 
IN^eo-Platonism sought to do it, in another way, by mystical 
absorption into Deity. G-od, say the Neo-Platonists, is 
the primal essence, or first principle, the One, the Good, 
the First ; not itself the vovg — the reason, nor yet vot^tov, to 
be known by the reason, but infinitely exalted above that. 
Superior to all being, to all thinking and willing and 
energy, this primordial principle needs nothing, desires 
nothing. Neither life, nor being, nor action, can be predi- 
cated of it. It can neither be expressed, nor thought. 
The world is the emanation or effluence of this first princi- 
ple. As the sun radiates light, as fire emits heat, so this 
principle sends forth from itself that which is eternal — the 
reason, vovc, its own image. From this again emanates 
the world soul, from which in turn the material, sensible 
world proceeds — the transcript of the former, as that was 
the image and emanation of the mvg. Individual souls, 
like the world-soul, partake both of the rational and the 
sensible, having their proper home in the rational world, 
from which they came, and to which all their aspirations 
should ever tend. By means of virtue, and that immediate 
intuition of God which is the soul's prerogative, it may 
become mystically one with him, and thus return to him. 
The system, especially as developed by Plotinus, is mani- 



NEW PLATO N ISM. 205 

festly a modification of the Platonic doctrine of ideas, from 
wiiich it does not essentially differ, tliough not in all 
respects the same. lamblichns seems to have derived his doc- 
trines, howeyer, rather from Pythagoras than Plato ; while 
the later Neo-Platonists, as represented by Proclns, diverge 
yet more widely from the doctrine of Plotinns, as to the 
order of creation, or emanation from the primordial nnity — a 
multitude of unities being supposed to proceed from this first 
principle, instead of the voix:, or reason, of Plotinus ; from 
which unities again proceed a triad of creative and forma- 
tive essences. The soul is in its very nature eternal, occu- 
pies a middle rank between the sensuous and the divine, 
and is endowed with freedom of will. Matter, in itself, is 
neither good nor evil. 



PART II. 

MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 



CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTORY. 

THB SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 

We have traced, in the pxeyious pages, the progress of 
speculatiye thought, from its rise among the early G-reeks 
of the Ionian and Pythagorean schools, through its merid- 
ian of Platonic splendor, to its decline and final disappear- 
ance with the Neo-Platonism of the first Christian centuries. 
The philosophy of the church fathers of the early centu- 
ries, was more properly a theology than a philosophy, and 
has its place, therefore, in the history of church doctrine, 
rather than in the history of speculative thought. As such, 
it is fully treated by ecclesiastical historians. It cannot^ 
however, be denied, that the theology of the early church 
was very largely modified — whether for good or ill, may 
possibly admit of question — ^by the philosophy of the pre- 
ceding Grecian schools, more especially by the Platonic and 
Neo-Platonic doctrines, and to some extent by the phi- 
losophy of Aristotle. This is specially the case with 
Justin Martyr — 150 A, d. — a disciple of the Stoic and Pla- 
tonic philosophy before he became a Christian, and who 
ascribes whatever of truth is contained in the writings of 



208 THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 

Grecian pliilosophers and poets to the influence of the 
divine logos, present in them, and in all men, partially, but 
revealed in his complete fulness only in Christ. Socrates, 
Heraclitus, and others of the G-reeks, living in communion 
with the logos, and inciting men to a better knowledge of 
the true God, Justin regards as Christians, though they 
may not have been so called. Much of the theology of 
Plcito he regards as in reality borrowed from the Jewish 
Scriptures. Even Tertullian, A. D. 160, who, in his oppo- 
sition to the philosophic tendency, goes so far as to adopt 
the irrational proposition " Credo quia absurdiim,''^ still held 
many opinions in common with the Stoics, and highly 
esteemed the writings of Seneca. 

Clement of Alexandria and Origen — 185-254 A. d. — 
show very clearly, in their writings, the influence of the 
Grecian philosophy, especially that of Plato, whose doc- 
trine of preexistence was held by Origen. Clement, like 
Justin, held the Grecian philosophers, as well as the wise 
men of other times and nations, to have been under the 
guidance of the divine logos, and philosophy itself as a guide 
to righteousness (Strom, vii. 2, i. 5, vi. 5). 

Among the Latin fathers, Augustine — 354-430 — car- 
ries the Platonic spirit into the discussion of Christian doc- 
trine ; and even anticipates Descartes in placing as the 
immovable foundation of all our knowledge the conscious- 
ness of our own mental processes (Soliloquia, ii. 1). The 
very doubt implies the existence of the doubter. The same 
principle is maintained in several of his most important 
treatises, as in the De Vera Religione (72, 73), and in the 
De Trinitate (x. 14, xiv. 7). As with Plato, the idea of 
the good, or God, is the highest of ideas and the most 
complete form of being, comprehending in itself all others 
and crowning all ; so with Augustine, God is the summa 
essentia, eternal and unchangeable. The soul is immaterial 
and immortal ; possesses the faculties of memory, intellect, 
and will, under which latter term the passions and sensi- 



THE SCHOLASTIC PniLOSOPHY. 209 

bilities are included ; and partakes of immortality by vir- 
tue of its union with the eternal reason and the divine life 
— a sentiment closely analogous to the arguments of Plato 
in the Eepublic and in the Phaedo. 

If, as already stated, the philosophy of the early church 
fathers may more properly be called a theology, and rele- 
gated as such to the department of ecclesiastic or dogmatic 
history, so on the other hand the Scholastic philosophy, so 
called, of the Middle Ages, may be characterized in brief as 
philosophy made subservient to theology. Scholasticism 
was, in a word, philosophy subordinated to the doctrines of 
the church, and made to do service in their behalf, as the 
handmaid of religion. Some indeed, as Scotus Erigena, 
maintained the essential identity of religion and philosophy, 
and sought to bring the doctrines of the church into har- 
mony with reason and philosophy. Still in the main, and 
by far the larger number of the Scholastics, the dogmas of 
the church were held as above the reach of speculation, and 
when there was any conflict, real or seeming, between the 
two, philosophy must give way to faith. The doctrine of 
the church, and not reason, was held to be the standard. 
Johannes Scotus, or Erigena — about 800 A. d., is the earli- 
est Scholastic philosopher of note. He was born and edu- 
cated in Ireland, then called Scotia Major ; whence the 
epithet Scotus by which he is designated. He was subse- 
quently called to Paris, and placed at the head of the court 
school. His conceptions are decidedly Platonic, or Neo- 
Platonic and mystic. With him true philosophy and true 
religion are one ; and the authority of the church fathers 
is hardly surpassed by that of Scripture itself. God, the 
creating and uncreated being, alone has real subsistence ; 
he alone truly is. He is the essence of all things, the be- 
ginning and end of all (De Div. Nat. i. 3, 12). Among 
created natures are some which themselves have creative 
power ; viz., ideas , which are the archetypes or prototypes 
of things, the first causes of individual existences. These 



u 



210 THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 

ideas are contained in the divine wisdom or word, i. e., the 
Son ; and the influence of the Holy G-host, or divine love, 
causes these ideas to develop into the external forms of 
nature (De Div. Nat. ii. 19). The creation from nothing- 
is out of God's own incomprehensible essence (iii. 19) ; a 
procession through the primordial causes into the world of 
visible creatures ; and this procession is an eternal act (iii. 
17). God is the substance of all finite things ; our life is 
God's life in us (i. 10). God descends to the finite, not in 
the act of incarnation alone, but in all created existence. 
All things ultimately return to God, and repose in him 
(ii. 2). This view of God as the universal substance, the 
one existence, the all in all, it need hardly be remarked, is 
so clearly analogous to that of Spinoza, that it might 
almost be pronounced identical with it. The doctrine of 
ideas as creative powers residing in the divine being is man- 
ifestly of Platonic origin. 

Nominalism, in distinct opposition to realism, first 
appears in the latter part of the eleventh century. Accord- 
ing to this theory, genera and species are to be regarded 
as only collections of individuals, possessing the same 
characteristics and called by the same name ; having no 
real existence therefore, the only real existence being 
the individuals which constitute the class or collection. 
And in like manner all general or universal terms are 
to be regarded as names or terms only, and not, as Plato 
taught, real existences. One of the most famous, though 
not indeed the first who advocated this doctrine was 
BosceUinus, a native of Brittany, in the latter part of 
the eleventh century, a distinguished teacher, one of whose 
pupils was the youthful Abelard. He applied the doctrine 
of nominalism to the church dogma of the trinity, and 
so became involved in controversy with the ecclesiastical 
authorities, thus bringing nominalism itself into disrepute. 
If, said his opponents, only individuals have real existence, 
then the throe persons of the Trinity are three individuals 



THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 211 

or three Gods ; that, or else thej have no existence. This 
Eoscellinns admits ; but is compelled by the Council of 
Soissons, in 1092, to retract. He still adhered, howeyer, to 
the principle of nominalism. This principle was reviyed 
and more successfully advocated in the fourteenth century 
by William of Occam. The doctrine of Eoscellinus was 
vigorously opposed by Anselm and also by Ahelard, both 
philosophers of note. 

Anselm, born 1033, at Aosta in Piedmont, prior of a 
convent in Normandy in 1063, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
England, from 1093 till his death in 1109, was a bold and 
earnest champion of the church and its dogmas. The 
creed was to be the final test and absolute standard of truth, 
and no questions asked. Credo, UT intelligam, was his 
motto. His fundamental j)rinciple is that knowledge must 
rest on faith, and that in matters of faith the authority of the 
church is supreme. Yet he seeks to establish on rational 
grounds the essential doctrines of the Christian faith, as the 
Divine Existence, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Aton- 
ment. The latter he regards as satisfaction to the divine 
justice. With Anselm, goodness, truth, virtue, et cetera 
possess real existence, independent of individual beings, 
and not merely immanent in the latter. On this realistic 
basis he builds a proof of the divine existence, on the 
ground that all merely relative good implies an absolute 
good, a summum tonum, and that is Cod. 

The celebrated arg-ument for the divine existence drawn 
from the conception of God as the most perfect being, 
and as therefore possessing necessary existence, can hardly 
be pronounced logical. True, the attribute of necessary 
existence may pertain to the most perfect being, as con- 
ceived by our minds. But do we know that such a being 
really exists ? If so, then he possesses this attribute. In 
other words, if there is such a being, then he exists in this 
particular manner, to wit, by necessity of his nature. But 
the question of his real existence remains undecided (See 



f 



212 THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 

Ueberweg, Hist. Phil. vol. i. p. 384). The validity of the 
argument was called in question at the time by Gaunilo, a 
monk, and has been much debated since. 

The nominalistic doctrine of Eoscellinus was also 
opposed by Abelard, born 1074 in Nantes, in France, a 
pupil of Eoscellinus. He taught at Paris from 1102 to 
1136, and died at the priory of St. Mai'cel in 1142. He is 
justly regarded as the father of the Scholastic philosophy 
of the Middle Ages, and is chiefly distinguished for his 
rigorous application of dialectic or logic to theological 
reasoning. He tends, it may be said, to rationalism, 
rather than the opposite extreme of credulity, in matters 
of religious belief. In the main a nominalist, he still avoids 
the extreme view of that doctrine as well as of realism. 
The universal exists, he would say, not in words as such, 
but with reference to their significations or conce])tions. 
These conceptions existed in the divine mind before the 
creation of the external objects to which they relate. In 
opposition to the " credo ^^^ intelligam " of Anselm, he holds 
that rational insight must precede and prepare the way for 
faith. Like Augustine, he takes a monotheistic, in opposi- 
tion to a tritheistic view of the trinity, as held by Eoscelli- 
nus. He affirms the generic unity of the three divine 
persons ; whereas Eoscellinus maintained the independent 
existence of each, as three beings, tres suhstantics. Abelard 
on the contrary likens the three persons to the three parts 
of a syllogism, together constituting one syllogism (Introd. 
ad Theol. ii. p. 1078). In ethics, he maintains the doc- 
trine that the morality of an act consists in the intention, 
and that actions as such are indifferent. Sin is, properly 
speaking, a voluntary error. The propensity to evil which 
we inherit is not itself sin. Only the consenting to evil is 
sin ; only that which is in conflict with our own moral 
consciousness. In these respects the views of Abelard were 
far in advance of the theology and philosophy of his age. 

In the later period of Scholastic philosophy, the doc- 



THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 213 

trinos of Aristotle became predominant as the approved 
method of explaining the doctrines of the church. So 
with Alexander of Hales, who died 1245, and Albertus 
Magnns, a Dominican monk of the same century, educated 
at Paris and Padua, teacher at Paris and Cologne, and from 
1260 to 1262, bishop of Eavensburg ; called *^the G-reat" 
from his extensive erudition. He was the first to repro- 
duce in systematic order the whole 23hilosophy of Aristotle, 
in a series of commentaries and expositions, modifying the 
system to suit the ecclesiastical dogmas. But though an 
Aristotelian, still Platonism exerted no little influence 
over his mind. His knowledge of Aristotle seems to 
have been mainly through the channel of Latin trans- 
lations, from the Arabian commentators and from the 
Greek. He teaches that not only the nous of Aristotle is 
distinct from the body, and immortal, but also with it the 
inferior mental faculties. He held the freedom of the will 
as the basis of moral action ; and viewed the doctrine 
of the Trinity as one not to be treated by rational and 
philosophic theology. 

Thomas Aquinas, bom 1225, near Aquino, in the terri- 
tory of Naples ; educated in the convent of Monte Casino ; 
a monk of the Dominican order ; pupil of Albert the 
Great ; became teacher of theology and philosophy at 
Cologne, Paris, Naples ; died 1274. 

He brought the Scholastic philosophy to its highest 
development, uniting the Aristotelian doctrines to those 
of the orthodox church. He wrote commentaries on Aris- I 

totle, and treatises of theology, of which the Summa Theo- 
logiae is one of the most noted. With him, as with Aris- 
totle, the supreme end of life is knowledge, especially the 
knowledge of God. He is a realist in the Aristotelian 
sense. The universal exists in the individual, not inde- 
pendently ; only by the mental process of abstraction is it 
separated from the individual. In the Divine mind also, 
the universal exists, as the thought of God, before He 



214 THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 

creates. But not independently do ideas exist, either in 
the Divine mind or elsewhere. 

Aquinas reaches the proof of the Divine existence by 
the a posteriori method. The chain of causes cannot be 
infinite. The order of the world shows an orderer. The 
world is not eternal ; yet its non-eternity does not admit 
of demonstration. The soul, including the intellect witli 
its various faculties, is immaterial ; for it thinks not the 
individual merely but the universal. It is not preexist- 
ent ; and has no innate conceptions. The will depends 
on the understanding. What seems good is willed. The 
necessity which thus accrues is not the necessity of com- 
pulsion, but is true freedom. We have the power of 
choice, and yielding ourselves to one or another class of 
ideas it is in our power to control our own decisions and 
shape our characters. Yet in order to right action we need 
divine help. In the division of the virtues into ethical 
and dianoetic, Aquinas follows Aristotle, adding however 
to the philosophical the theological virtues, faith, love, 
and hope. The good is good, not because God commands 
it, but Tie commands it because it is good ; a distinction of 
highest importance in ethical science. 

Another distinguished Scholastic teacher was Johannes 
Duns Scotus, born in Dunston, Northumberland, or in 
Dun in the north of Ireland, it is uncertain which; a 
monk of the Franciscan order ; a teacher first at Oxford, 
afterward at Paris, and Cologne, where he died in 1308, 
at the age of thirty-four. He was an opponent of Thomas 
Aquinas and his system, and became the founder of a school 
in theology and philosophy which bore his name. His 
position is rather that of a critic than a dogmatist, assailing 
the weak points of other systems, rather than establishing 
positions of his own. Philosophy is with him only the 
submissive and unquestioning handmaid of theology. Tliat 
which the church teaches is to be received with implicit 
trust ; the arguments by which these teachings and dogmas 



THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 215 

are enforced, the proofs drawn from reason and philosophy 
to sustain these doctrines, may be called in question, and 
should be viewed with distrust. Indeed, the principal 
doctrines of religion cannot be demonstrated to be true on 
rational grounds, but must be received by faith as matters of 
divine revelation. Not only the doctrine of the Trinity, the 
Incarnation and Atonement, and other like dogmas of the 
Christian faith, but also the Creation from nothing, and 
the immortality of the soul, are beyond the power of rea- 
son to establish, but can only be rendered more or less 
probable aside from revelation. Still there is no necessary 
antagonism between faith and reason. His position is not 
unlike that of Kant in respect to these matters. Eeject- 
ing much of the reasoning employed to prove the existence 
of God and the immortality of the soul, he bases the evi- 
dence of these truths on the moral nature of man (com- 
pare Ueberweg, vol. i. p. 459). 

The authority of the church is, however, with Duns 
Scotus, as not with Kant, the final court of appeal. 
While in the main an Aristotelian, Duns Scotus is by no 
means a blind follower of the great Stagirite, but sits also 
at the feet of the Platonic and Neo- Platonic philosophy. 
His notions respecting matter and form are of this source. 
As regards the human will, it is not determined by the un- 
derstanding, but is free and self -determining, and this power 
of self-determination is the ground of the merit which 
attaches to right conduct. The will, not the intellect, is 
the grand moving agent in the realm of the human soul. 
^^ Voluntas est superior intellectu,'^ is with him a fun- 
damental proposition in psychology. In common with 
Thomas Aquinas, Scotus rejects the theory of innate know- 
ledge. Unlike him, he makes the arbitrary will of Deity 
the ground of right. The good is good, simply because He 
commands it. 

Contemporary or nearly so with the distinguished 
teachers last mentioned, were Roger Bacon. 1214-1244, 



216 THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 

and Raymond Lully^ 1234-1315, both names of honor 
in the realm of letters and philosophy. William of Occam 
followed ; born in the county of Surrey, England ; of 
the [Franciscan order ; pupil of Duns Scotus ; afterward 
teacher at Paris ; died in 1347. A stout opponent of the 
doctrine of realism, he is regarded as the renewer of 
nominalism. Universals are a mere conception of the 
human mind ; only the individual is real. He carried, even 
farther than Duns Scotus, the destructive criticism which 
calls in question or rejects the arguments from reason in de- 
fence of the doctrines of religion. He even denies that there 
are any theological doctrines that can be established by rea- 
son alone, aside from revelation and church authority. 

In the 14th and 15th centuries, Platonism was revived 
by the mystics of Germany, under the lead of Eckhart of 
Strasburg (1250), a Dominican, who taught at Paris, was 
called to Eome and advanced to high honors, and after- 
ward appointed Vicar-General of Saxony and Bohemia. 
His doctrines awakened opposition ; he was brought before 
the tribunal of the Inquisition at Cologne ; appealed to 
the Pope, by whom a bull was issued condemning a large 
number of his doctrines ; but before the publication of the 
same, Eckhart died, 1329. The psychology of Eckhart was 
in the main that of Thomas Aquinas and of Augustine. In 
theology his fundamental principle seems to be the idea of 
the equality in essence of the soul with God. So far from 
rejecting the aid of reason, in establishing matters of 
faith, as preceding teachers had done, he maintains the 
absolute supremacy of reason. It is by theoretical knowl- 
edge that we become partakers of the divine knowledge. 
The highest function of the reason is, however, an imme- 
diate intuition of truth and of God, as Plato and the Neo- 
Platonists had taught. The will is made, by Eckhart, sub- 
ordinate to the faculty of knowledge, precisely the opposite 
of the doctrine of Scotus. Knowledge is a union of sub- 
ject with object. The Absolute, or Deity, is without per- 



BACON- — IKBUCTIVE SYSTEM. 217 

sonality, and is distinguished from God, who is contained 
in the former — the Godhead and God being thus regarded 
as distinct. The Godhead is aboye all understanding and 
comprehension, and cannot be revealed. God acts, and 
can reveal himself. The eternal Godhead, as the begin- 
ning and end of all things, remains in eternal obscurity. 
The one Divine nature, in the act or process of self-knowl- 
edge, develops into a Trinity of persons. The subject in 
this process is the Father ; the object, or the Divine nature 
thus contemplated, is the Son, and the delight and love 
awakened by this contemplation is the Spirit— a theory of 
the Trinity which has been received in Germany in more 
recent times. The whole system savors strongly of mys- 
ticism and fanciful speculation ; but the object of Eckhart 
and his followers was doubtless to present the doctrines of 
religion, and also of the schools, in such a way as to touch 
and impress the hearts of the people. And in this they 
seem to have succeeded. 



CHAPTER 11. 

BACOK AND THE INDUCTIVE SYSTEM. 

The Scholastic philosophy, however powerful in its 
time, could not always hold in subjection the human mind. 
Its servile submission to the authority of the Catholic 
Church as a tribunal and court of appeal above reason ; its 
elaborate and ingenious word-quibbling, to which the whole 
science of dialectic had in its hands become degraded, could 
not always endure. Men were beginning to detect the 
cheat, to inquire for truth, to demand some fruit of all this 
immense erudition of doctors ^^ seraphic," doctors " subtile," 
and doctors ^'invincible." Men were beginning to think 
for themselves independently of ecclesiastical dictation and 
the authority of the fathers. 

10 



218 BACOK — INDUCTIVE SYSTEM. 

At this juncture arose one whose writings were destined 
to create a revolution in science and philosophy, and turn 
the thoughts of men into new channels of inyestigation. 
And while his own researches lay chiefly in the domain of 
physical science, as the field then most neglected and most 
needing to be cultivated, yet his method was one which 
applied equally to the whole realm of knowledge and his 
plan, vast and far-reaching, embraced the whole. It would 
be an imperfect and incorrect survey of the history of 
speculative thought, which should omit the name of Francis 
Bacon, or fail to assign him a place as the illustrious pre" 
cursor of that reformation in philosophy, hardly less re- 
markable than the religious reformation which followed. 

Francis Bacon was born, January 22, 1561, at York 
House, in the Strand, London, of honorable parentage* 
He was the youngest son of Sir Mcholas Bacon, Lord 
Keeper of the Seals, who held that office, with rank of 
Chancellor, for twenty years under Elizabeth. His mother 
was a daughter of Sir Antony Coke, known as a linguist 
of some repute. Born at a time when the arts and sciences 
were beginning to be more generally and more thoroughly 
cultivated, and endowed by nature with rare gifts, he has 
been well described by one of his biographers as *^ an orig- 
inal genius, formed not to receive implicit notions of think- 
ing and reasoning from what was admitted and taught be- 
fore him ; but to prescribe laws himself, in the empire of 
learning, to his own and succeeding ages." * He was edu- 
cated at Cambridge under Whitgift, afterward Archbishop 
of Canterbury, having entered Trinity College in his 
twelfth year. His progress was so rapid, that before he 
was sixteen he had already "run through the whole circle 
of the liberal arts as they were then taught ; " and had be- 
gun even then to perceive the unsatisfactory nature of the 

* Life of Lord Bacon prefixed to liis Works. Englisli edition. 
5 vols., foUo. 1778. 



BACON — INDUCTIVE SYSTEM. 219 

pMlosopliytlien preyalent. While yet quite young indeed' 
Queen Elizabeth, discerning the genius of the boy, took 
delight in plying him with questions, and was so much 
pleased with the readiness and manliness of his replies 
hat she used to call him playfully her young Lord Keeper. 

Having been left with but small inheritance at the death 
of his father, he devoted himself to the study of law as a 
profession, in which he soon rose to eminence. He was ap- 
pointed by Elizabeth her counsel extraordinary, but owing 
to the secret opposition of his kinsman Cecil, secretary 
of state, he was not at first raised to any office of emolu- 
ment. Essex, however, was his friend, and conferred on him 
a fine estate. In 1605, two years after the death of Eliza- 
beth, Bacon published his great work, " The Advancement 
of Learning,^' the aim of which was to survey the whole 
extent of the intellectual realm, both those fields which had 
been cultivated, and those which had not, and to ascertain, 
if possible, what might be done to improve and complete 
the one and to supply the want of the other. This work 
he afterward translated into Latin. How closely the aim and 
purport of this work resembles that which Aristotle in like 
manner laid out for himself, the student of history need 
hardly be reminded. 

After the accession of James, the fortunes of Bacon, 
notwithstanding the enmity of Sir Edward Coke, attorney- 
general, and of Cecil, steadily improved. In 1607 he was 
made solicitor-general, and in 1613, attorney-general. In 
1617 he was intrusted with the keeping of the seals, and in 
1619 was promoted to the dignity of Lord High Chan- 
cellor ; a post to which he had long aspired as the height of 
his ambition. Shortly after he was created Baron of 
Verulam, a title which he afterward exchanged for that 
of Viscount St. Albans. 

Though now possessing a liberal income, he seems to 
have been negligent of financial matters and destitute of 
economy. His dependents squandered his fortune ; and 



220 BACOK — INDUCTIVE SYSTEM. 

thus tlie foundation was laid for subsequent troubles 
which led ultimately to his ruin. 

But neither the weight and pressure of public business, 
nor the dazzling honors of his position^ could divert a mind 
like his from the true end of his life, the study of philoso- 
phy. Already in 1610 he had published his second great 
work, " The Wisdom of the Ancients." In 1620, the year 
following his appointment as Lord High Chancellor, 
his ** Novum Organum " appeared, the second part of the 
'' Instauratio Magna " ; a work which he had been engaged 
for twelve years in elaborating and polishing (Life of B.. 
prefixed to London edition of his works, 1778, vol. i. p. 
23) ; according to others, thirty years. Eawley speaks of 
having seen twelve autographs of the work ^^ wrought up 
and improved year by year, till it reached the shape in 
which it was published (Hallam — Literature of Europe, 
vol. iii. p. 38). And Bacon himself, in his dedication of 
the work to King James, says that he had ^^been about 
some such work near thirty years, so as I made no haste. 
And the reason why I have published it now, specially 
being imperfect, is, to speak plainly, because I number my 
days and would have it saved." (Works, as above, vol. iii. p. 
584). He seems to have written with an eye to the future, 
for he assures his majesty, "1 account your favor may be 
to this work as much as an hundred years time ; for I am 
persuaded the work will gain upon men's minds in ages, 
but your gracing it may make it take hold more swiftly." 

The close of Bacon's career was far less brilliant and 
commanding than his course had been. His sun was des- 
tined to go down under a cloud. He was accused of receiv- 
ing bribes in his ofiicial capacity, nor was the charge per- 
haps wholly without foundation. That he had ever allowed 
himself to be influenced in his decisions by presents thus 
received there is no evidence, nor that in receiving such 
gifts he had done more than was the custom of the time. 
The government of James was notoriously corrupt ; and 



BAC02J}- — INDUCTIVE SYSTEM. 221 

that monarcli, compelled by pressure of public sentiment to 
sacrifice either his Lord Chancellor or his favorite minister 
Buckingham^ the author of all the troubles, preferred to 
give up Bacon as a scapegoat in order to save himself 
and the guilty favorite. He would not even allow Lord 
Bacon to be present at his own trial before parliament, 
lest he might too successfully defend himself, promising 
his royal word that if he would remain silent he would 
screen him from punishment and reward him with favor. 
The sentence was severe, the noble Lord Chancellor, full 
of years and honors, was rudely stripped of all his dignities 
and offices, condemned to inprisonment, and heavily fined. 
The king partially redeemed his pledge, by restoring him 
to liberty after short imprisonment, and remitting his fine, 
but permitted his faithful servant to pass the remainder of 
his days in penury, obscurity, and disgrace. He died in 
1626, about five years after his dishonor, at the age of 
sixty-six, and was buried in the church of Sfc. Nicholas, 
near St. Alban's. 

Although, as already intimated, the researches of 
Bacon were more particularly directed to the department 
of physical science, as then demanding investigation, be- 
cause most in the back-ground, still his plan embraced the 
whole realm of philosophy, and his principle was appli- 
cable to mental and moral, no less than physical science. 
That principle was the inductive method of observation 
and experience, as the only valid basis of conclusions and 
ground of true science. In this he set himself in opposi- 
tion to the Scholastic philosophy, then, and for a long 
time previously, in vogue which, relying chiefly on the de- 
ductive or syllogistic method of reasoning, and employing 
itself for the most part in fruitless discussions relating 
often to the meaning of words, had shown itself for ages 
barren of useful result, and had in all this widely departed 
from the spirit of Aristotle, while yet claiming to be the 
method and philosophy of that great master. This whole 



222 BACOK — INDUCTIVE SYSTEM. 

method of the schools Bacon resolutely and vigorously 
assails, and in so doing considers himself as opposing Aris- 
totle. How far the Baconian or inductive method really 
differs from that of Aristotle himself, may admit of ques- 
tion ; that it differs toto acelo from that of Aristotle, as 
represented by the schoolmen of the middle ages, there 
can be no question. His merit as a philosopher lies 
chiefly in having called back the human mind from the 
wrong direction in which it had so long been seeking 
knowledge, and setting it on a new path of investigation. 
This, rather than any brilliant discoveries made by him- 
self in science, constitutes his great merit and achieve- 
ment. Yet this, in itself, has revolutionized the thinking 
of the world. We cannot agi-ee with Schwegler, that 
" strictly speaking, we can allow no content to the Ba- 
conian Philosophy " (Hist. Phil. p. 167). The method is 
itself a content of inestimable value. The progress of 
science, the rapid advance of the human mind in every 
department of useful knowledge for the two hundred and 
fifty years since the publication of that method, is its con- 
tent ; and surely it is a sufficient one. In physical science 
at least, though not perhaps in the realm of speculative 
thought, in the outer if not in the inner and spiritual 
world, to Bacon belongs the honor, now generally ac- 
corded to him, of being the father of modern philosophy. 
The chief work on which his fame as a philosopher will 
ever rest is the *^ Novum Organum," the second part of his 
*' Instauratio Magna." The object of this was to furnish 
the world a better mode of investigation of truth, that is, 
a better logic than the so-called Aristotelian, or syllogistic 
method ; a logic of which the aim should be not to supply 
arguments for controversy , but to investigate nature, and, 
by observation and the complete induction of particulars, 
arrive at truth. It was designed to be, as he expresses it, 
" the science of a better and more perfect use of reason in 
the investigation of things, and of the true aids of the un- 



BACON — INDUCTIYE SYSTEM. 223 

derstanding." In its present shape it is rather a summary 
of topics, or theses, which it was his intention to treat more 
fully, than a complete and final statement ; and of the 
nine topics of which he proposes to speak in the second 
book, we have only the first, the other eight not being dis- 
cussed at all. He lays out the programme as follows. 
^' And so we will speak in the first place of prerogatiye in- 
stances ; secondly, of the aids of induction ; thirdly, of the 
rectification of induction ; fourthly, of varjdng the inves- 
tigation according to the nature of the subject ; fifthly, of 
prerogative natures as regards investigation, or of what 
shall be first inquired into, and what afterward ; sixthly. 
of the limits of inquiry, or the synopsis of all natures in 
the world ; seventhly, on the application to practice, or 
concerning what is in relation to man ; eighthly, on the 
preparations for inquiiy ; and lastly, on the scale, ascend- 
ing and descending, of axioms " (Lib. ii. Aphor. xxi.). Of 
these the first only is taken up ; the rest are wanting. 

The Novum Organum, as we have it, is in two books, 
both consisting of aphorisms, or detached sentences. The 
first book contains, among other things, an enumeration or 
classification of the various illusions or fallacies which 
deceive the mind — idola, as he calls them — ^^ idola et 
notiones . f alsae, quae intellectum humanum jam occu- 
parunt" (Aphorism xxxviii. lib. i.). These are idola 
trihus, illusions or fallacies of the race, such as pertain to 
human nature itself ; " fundata in ipsa natura humana, 
atque in ipsa tribu, seu gente hominum" (Aph. xli.); 
idola species, fallacies of the individual man ; idola fori, 
fallacies arising from the intercourse of man with his fel- 
lows, and especially from the use of words ; idola tJieatri, 
fallacies arising from false systems of philosophy and 
incorrect rules of reasoning — "ex diversis dogmatibus 
philosophiarum, ac etiam ex perversis iegibus demonstra- 
tionum" (Lib. i. Aphor. xliv.). 

The second book contains the new logic or rules for 



224 BACOl^ — INDUCTIYE SYSTEM. 

the interpretation of nature after the inductive method ; 
consisting mainly of the prerogative instances above men- 
tioned — ^' prcerogativm instantiarum" (Lib. ii. Aphor. 
xxi.), or the phenomena to which our inquiries should be 
specially directed in the study of nature. 

The prominence given by Bacon to natural philosophy, 
or natural science, in his whole discussion of the inductive 
method, and the fact that all his illustrations are drawn 
from that source, have led to the question whether he really 
intended to include the realm of mind, as well as external 
nature, among the objects to which the logic of induction 
is applicable. He has himself decided this matter. " One 
may doubt, not to say object, whether it is natural philos- 
ophy alone that we speak of perfecting by our method, or 
other sciences as well — ^logic, ethics, politics. But we cer- 
tainly intend what has been said as applicable to all ; and 
as the common logic which governs by syllogism per- 
tains not only to natural but to all sciences, so also our 
own, which proceeds by induction embraces all" (Lib. i. 
Aphor. cxxvii.). 

The J^ovum Organum constitutes, as already stated, 
the second part of the Instauratio Magna, of which the 
treatise on the advancement of learning, "De Dignitate 
et Augmentis Scientiarum," in nine books, forms the first 
part. The third part of this grand design is entitled, 
'^ Preparation (parasceue) for history, natural and experi- 
mental ; or a description of natural and experimental his- 
tory, such as may suffice and be in order for the basis and 
foundation of true philosophy" (Insta. Mag., pars tertia' 
This is rather a survey and outline of the vast field to b^ 
explored than an actual exploration of it ; a sketch or 
chart of what is to be done in this department of knowl- 
edge. A field so vast it was not for any one mind, how- 
ever comprehensive, to explore. He gives a catalogue of 
one hundred and thirty particular histories, which are 
necessary to the completion of this part of his grand work ; 



BACON — INDUCTIVE SYSTEM. 225 

as, for instance, a history of the celestial bodies, of the 
configuration of the heavens, of comets, of meteors, of 
lightnings, of winds, of clouds, of rain, hail, snow, etc., etc., 
including in the list a history of the natures and powers of 
numbers and of figures (Works, yoI. iv. p. 397-400). A 
few of these he has himself sketched, as illustrations or 
samples of the proper method of inquiry ; as, for example, 
a t]'eatise on the history of winds, one on the history of 
life and death, another on sound and hearing. 

The fourth part of his great work is entitled " Scala 
Intellectus, sive Filum Labyrinthi " — of which only the 
opening pages were ever completed. 

A fifth part was contemplated, which should furnish a 
specimen of the new philosophy after the inductive method, 
or as he calls it, " Anticipationes Philosophise Secund 83." 
A perfect system of philosophy according to the inductive 
method, forming a sixth part, would be necessary fully to 
complete the grand design of this Instauratio Magna ; 
but this Bacon had never expected to accomplish. "To 
perfect this last part," he says, " is above our powers and 
beyond our hopes. We may, as we trust, make no despicable 
beginnings : The destinies of the human race must complete 
it" (Distributio Operis, Works, vol. iv. p. 13). "Such," 
in the beautiful language of Hallam, " was the temple 
which Bacon saw in vision before him : the stately front 
and decorated pediments, in all their breadth of light and 
harmony of proportion ; while long vistas of receding 
columns and glimpses of internal splendor revealed a glory 
that it was not permitted him to comprehend " (Literature 
of Europe, vol. iii. p. 37). 

In the above sketch of his great work, the " Instaura- 
tio Magna," I have spoken more at length of the " Novum 
Organum," as the more important of the several portions 
which compose the grand whole, that in which the spirit 
of the Baconian system is more distinctively and fully ex- 
pressed. The treatise De Augmentis is by no means, how- 
10* 



226 BACOK — INDUCTIVE SYSTEM. 

eyer, to be overlooked. In this, Bacon divides human 
learning into history, poetry, and philosophy, according to 
the several faculties of the mind involved, viz., memory, 
imagination, and reason. By poetry he understands ficti- 
tious narrative only. Philosophy relates to God, to nature, 
and to man. Natural philosophy he divides into speculative 
and practical ; the former again into physics and meta- 
physics, the former having to do with material and efficient 
causes, the latter with formal and final causes. Philosophy, 
as it relates to man, is concerned with the intellectual and 
moral faculties, and comprises the sciences of logic and 
ethics, as related to the human reason, and the human 
will, respectively. These sciences cover a wider territory, 
however, than it is usual now to assign them. The former — 
logic — contains whatever pertains to the human intellect : 
the art of inventing, judging, retaining and delivering the 
conceptions of the mind." The latter — ethics — comprises 
whatever relates to the sensibilities and the will. "Altera 
decreta, altera actiones progignit." The main division of 
moral science is into the nature of good, and the rules by 
which the will may be conformed to that which is good, 
which latter he calls *'the Georgics of the mind." The 
essence of good he makes to consist in seeking the good of 
the whole, rather than of the individual. 

The mind of Bacon, far as it towers above that of the 
race, is not without its individual blemishes. He is no 
mathematician, and knows little of geometry. The pure 
mathematics he depreciates. He would have mathematics 
and logic '^tobe the serving-maids of physical philosophy." 
His fondness for metaphor and analogies sometimes carries 
him to excess in that direction. His phraseology is some- 
times affected, his style obscure, and his arguments fanciful. 
In the laying out of his work he proposes more than he has 
achieved, or could possibly achieve. These things are often 
said of him, and these things are true of him. These 
defects may have impaired, as Brucker supposes, the influ- 



BACOK — IKDUCTIVE SYSTEM. 227 

ence of his writings upon the public mind. By philoso- 
phers and men of science, especially on the continent, he 
was at once appreciated. Eichelieu speaks of him in the 
highest terms. Gassendi was an ardent admirer. The De 
Augmentis was published in France the year after its pub- 
lication in England, and was translated into French a few 
years after. Three editions of that work, and three of the 
Novum Organum appeared in Holland within forty years 
of their first appearance in England. Leibnitz and Puffen- 
dorf are loud in his praise, as the reyiver of true philosophy. 
Bayle calls him one of the gi'eatest men of his age. It 
was not till near the close of the seventeenth century, 
however, that he began to be specially honored in Great 
Britain, and even then it was chiefly by natural philosophers 
that his works were studied. Hallam even ventures the 
suggestion ^' that more have read Lord Bacon within these 
thirty years than in the two preceding centuries " ; and 
that the fashion of referring to brilliant passages of his 
works, " at least in books designed for the general reader, 
is not much older than the close of the last century " (Lit. 
Eur., vol. iii. p. 73). 

Eeferring to the fact that in the Novum Organum not 
a single example is given from moral philosophy, and only 
a single one from mental science or logic, the same writer 
very justly remarks, ** we must constantly remember that 
the philosophy of Bacon was left exceedingly incomplete. 
Many lives would not have sufficed for what he had 
planned, and he gave only the leisure hours of his own. It 
is evident that he had turned his thoughts to ph3^sical 
philosophy rather for an exercise of his reasoning faculties, 
and out of his insatiable thirst for knowledge, than from 
any peculiar aptitude for their subjects, much less any 
advantage of opportunity for their cultivation. He was 
more eminently the philosopher of human, than of general 
nature. Hence he is exact as well as profound in all his 
reflections on civil life and mankind ; while his conjectures 



228 BACOIiJ" — INDUCTIVE SYSTEM. 

in natural philosophy, though often very acute, are apt to 
wander far from the truth, in consequence of his defective 
acquaintance with the phenomena of nature. His " Centu- 
ries of Natural History " give abundant proof of this. He 
is, in all these inquiries, like one doubtfully, and by degrees, 
making out a distant prospect, but often deceived by the 
haze. And if we compare what may be found in the sixth, 
seventh, and eighth books De Augmentis, in the Essays, 
the History of Henry YII., and the various short treatises 
contained in his works on moral and political wisdom, and 
on human nature, from experience of which all such wis- 
dom is drawn, with the Ehetoric, Ethics, and Politics of 
Aristotle, or with the historians most celebrated for their 
deep insight into civil society and human character — with 
Thucydides, Tacitus, Philip De Oomines, Machiavel, Da- 
vila, Hume — we shall, I think, find that one man may 
almost be compared with all of these together " (Literature 
of Europe, vol. iii. p. 66). 

Perhaps it is not too much to say with Dugald Stewart, 
that '' in the whole history of letters, no other individual 
can be mentioned whose exertions have had so indisputable 
an effect in forwarding the intellectual progress of man- 
kind" (Life of Eeid, sec. 2 ; quoted also by Hallam). 

It is not without emotion that we read in the last will 
of this great but unfortunate man, these touching words : 
" First, I bequeath my soul and body into the hands of God 
by the blessed oblation of my Saviour ; the one at the 
time of my dissolution, the other at the time of my resur- 
rection. For my burial I desire it may be in St. Michael's 
Church, near St. Albans : there was my mother buried. 

For my name and memory, I leave it to 

men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the 
next ages " (Works, vol. iii. p. 677). 



BEiTB DESCAETES. 329 



CHAPTER III. 

EEKE DESCAETES. 

Ik order rightly to estimate tlie man to whom, more 
than any other, belongs the honor of being the founder of 
modern philosophy, we must know something of the age 
to which he belonged, something of the man personally, 
something of his system, something of the impress and 
effect of the man and his system on other minds and ages. 

■ § 1. — The Age. 

The close of the sixteenth century, and the beginning of 
the seventeenth, were a transition period in the history of 
philosophy and the progress of human thought. The philos- 
ophy of Aristotle, which, in one form or another, for two 
thousand years had held sway oyer the minds of men, keep- 
ing its throne and state amid all the commotions and changes 
of empire, itself unshaken and undisturbed by the rise and 
fall of nations, was now in its decadence, fast losing its hold 
upon the mind of the age. Through the whole sixteenth 
century, in fact, this process had been going on. Nothing 
in the history of mind is more remarkable than this prev- 
alence, for so long a period, of the Scholastic philosophy. 
"For more than five centuries," says a somewhat too ardent 
eulogist of Descartes, "this philosopher — i. 6., Aristotle — 
attacked, proscribed, adored, excommunicated ; always 
victor, dictated to the nations what they should believe." 
'^From the age of Aristotle to that of Descartes, I perceive 
a desert of two thousand years, where original thought 
loses itself, as a river which perishes in the sands, or hides 
itself in the earth, and reappears, a thousand leagues away, 
under new skies and in another land."* If these state- 

* Eloge, par Thomas. 



230 RENE DESCARTES. 

ments of the French eulogist are somewhat too bold and 
sweeping, as I must concede they are, they have neverthe- 
less a basis of truth. 

At the period of which we speak, the Scholastic phi- 
losophy, however, had lost its primal vigor, and was fast 
falling to decay. Men had come to distrust and disbelieve 
it, while as yet they had nothing better to accept in its 
stead. It stood like some old edifice of a former age, its 
glory dimmed, its columns fallen and shattered, but 
majestic in its ruin. There needed some one to clear away 
the rubbish, and lay the foundation of a newer and a 
better structure. The first principles of human knowl- 
edge were to be readjusted. A right method of investiga- 
tion was needed ; a right field. In both respects men had 
been led astray ; seeking neither for the right things, nor 
in the right manner. The nations, waking from their long 
slumber, felt the need of an instructor. Something in- 
deed had already been done in the way of discovery ; the 
light was already dawning. Copernicus had announced 
the true theory of the earth's motion ; Tycho Brahe and 
Kepler had given definitions in the science of astromony, 
and enlarged its domain ; the telescope, by which, it has 
been eloquently said, man touches the extremities of crea- 
tion, was already invented ; and Galileo, going forth on 
voyages of discovery, had brought back strange tidings. 
Sufficient had been done, enough had been disclosed, to 
awaken and stimulate the minds of men. The materials 
were at hand for the most successful research, but the 
principle of order was wanting, the law and the lawgiver* 
to reduce to form and method the discordant elements. 

Such, in brief, was the state of human learning at the 
close of the sixteenth century. In the language of Morell ; 
*^ There needed some master mind, who should be daring 
enough to trample upon the sacredness of ancient and estab- 
lished authority, acute enough to show the true objects of 
all philosophy, and powerful enough to furnish a new 



REKE DESCARTES. 231 

organum, and dig, as it were, a new channel, in which the 
philosophic spirit of the world should flow." Such a mind 
arose ; two such. Bacon and Descartes, and after them, in 
the domain of human knowledge and philosophy, all things 
became new. 

§. 2.— The Man. 

Born in 1596, of honorable parentage, in Touraine 
in France ; his father, counsellor to the parliament of 
Brittany, his mother, the daughter of the Lieutenant- 
General of Poitiers ; a feeble and sickly child, giving 
promise of no long life ; while yet a boy, noted for the 
liveliness of his imagination, and a peculiar inquisitiveness 
of mind, always seeking to know the causes of things, so 
that before he was yet nine years old he had acquired the 
title of the little philosopher. At the school of the Jesuits, 
where he was placed at the age of eight years, he showed a 
marked fondness for poetry and mathematics, which latter 
alone, of all the sciences, gave him entire satisfaction, as fur- 
nishing the evidence of its own assertions. At sixteen he 
finished his studies at the school, having learned not to 
think much of his own attainments, or those of his teachers. 
'^ The result, ordinarily," says one of his biographers, " of 
one's first studies, is to imagine that one knows everything. 
Descartes was already so far advanced as to see that he 
knew nothing." We next find him at Paris, seeking in the 
gay and pleasure-loving city, occupation for his eager and 
restless mind. Breakingly off presently from these follies 
and dissipations, he shuts himself in entire seclusion in an 
obscure section of the city, and devotes himself exclusively 
for two years to the study of geometry, no one of his 
former companions knowing of his whereabouts. For the 
next twelve years we find him travelling in foreign parts, 
visiting, in the careful observation of men, the principal 
countries of Europe, spending often not a few months but 
years in one country before passing to another, sometimes 
bearing arms, and serving as common soldier, always pass- 



232 RENE DESCARTES. 

ing much time in seclusion and careful thought on the 
topics suggested by his observation of men and of nature. 
All this while, his mind was passing through those pain- 
ful processes of doubt and struggle which laid the founda- 
tion of his own future system of philosophy. It was dur- 
ing this time also that he made those scientific observations 
among the Alps, which constituted in fact the material of 
his subsequent work on natural philosophy. At the age of 
thirty-three, he fixes his permanent residence in Holland, 
choosing that in preference to his native land, principally 
from the desire of escaping public notice and enjoying that 
solitude so congenial to his spirit and so favorable to his 
studies. Intrusting his secret to a single friend, who alone 
knew his place of abode, changing often his residence as it 
became known, hiding himself now in the throng of some 
large town or city, now in the seclusion of some obscure 
hamlet, now in some building, that stood solitary in the 
fields or on the sea-shore, everywhere he sought retirement 
and gave himself to profound thought. 

At the age of forty-one appeared his first work, scien- 
tific in its character, with an introductory treatise on the 
method of arriving at certainty in the investigation of 
truth ; in other words, the famous ^^ Discourse on Method," 
which laid the foundation of his fame and also of modern 
philosophy. Four years later appeared his second great 
work, entitled '^ The Meditations," the most strictly philo- 
sophical of all his works. His ^* Principia Philosophise " ap- 
peared in 1644, three years later, and is a complete system 
of Natural Philosophy. The work on the Passions, or 
Psychology, as we should now term it, followed five years 
later, and is the last of his principal works. 

Some of these productions, especially the " Meditations," 
involved him in controversy with the principal theologians 
of the time, and these discussions, extending through a 
considerable part of his subsequent life, form not the least 
interesting part of his published writings. 



RENE DESCARTES. 233 

These works gave him precisely what he did not wish, 
great celebrity. Previously to the publication of the 
treatise on the Passions, he was invited to the court of 
Prance, not so much, as it appeared, from a desire to pro- 
fit by his wisdom, as from curiosity to see so distinguished 
a man. *^ I perceived," says he, in his peculiarly artless 
way, " that they wished to have me in Prance, a little as 
the great lords like to have in their menagerie an elephant, 
or a lion, or some rare animal." Among those who sought 
the acquaintance of Descartes, were those, however, who 
were prompted by higher motives than mere curiosity ; 
among them two of the most illustrious women of the age, 
Elizabeth of Bohemia, daughter of the Elector Palatine, 
who preferred the honor of being the friend and pupil of 
Descartes to that of being Queen of Poland ; and Christina 
of Sweden, who invited him to her capital, sent one of her 
admirals to conduct him thither, received him with great 
distinction, and in order to receive his instructions in phi- 
losophy, undisturbed by the cares of state, fixed upon the 
hour of five o'clock A. M., in the depths of a northern 
winter. Determined to retain him at all events in her 
dominions, she was about to bestow upon him the title of 
nobility and extensive lands, but a monarch more imperi- 
ous demanded the man, and after a residence of only four 
months in Sweden, Descartes was attacked by a fatal 
malady, and died in 1650. It was her wish to have interred 
him among the kings, and to have erected a splendid mau- 
soleum to his memory, but Descartes was a Catholic, and 
the rules of that church forbade his interment in other 
than a Catholic cemetery. Years afterward his remains 
were transferred to France, and interred with great pomp 
in the church of St. Cenevidve. I 

Whatever honors were conferred on Descartes at the i 

courts of princes, his own family seem not to have regarded 
him with any feeling of pride or veneration — ashamed to 
have had in their ancient and aristocratic family one who 



234 BENE DESCARTES. 

was known under the vulgar title of philosopher. It was 
not until his became the first name in France, that they 
began to appreciate his merit. 

The personal character of Descartes was unexception- 
able. No one can study his life and writings, and not feel 
that he was a sincere loyer of virtue and truth, and carried 
his philosophy into practice. He early laid down for his 
own practical guidance, while tossed on the uncertain sea 
of doubt and conjecture as to all speculative truth, the fol- 
lowing rules : 1. To obey the laws and customs of his 
country. 2. To adhere with constancy to a given course, 
and be not easily turned aside from any proposed measure, 
as those who, lost in the woods, wander round and round, 
instead of striking out a straight path, and keeping to that 
be it right or wrong. 3. To take the side always of the 
moderate opinions, because, in morals, that which is extreme 
is almost always wrong. 4. To labor to overcome himself 
rather than fortune, because one's desires are more easily 
changed than the order of the world, and nothing is in our 
own power but our thoughts. By these principles he regu- 
lated his life. He seems to have had admirable self-control. 
When one commits an offence against me, says he, I strive 
to elevate my soul so high that the offence shall not come 
anywhere near me. Eeputation he both scorned and 
shunned, as inimical to the two most valuable possessions of 
the philosopher — liberty and leisure. The line of Ovid was 
his motto : ** Sad the death of him who dies well known 
to others, to himself unknown." The modesty of Descartes 
was conspicuous ; yet no man better knew how much men 
are influenced by other considerations than those of intrin- 
sic merit. In dedicating his great work, the " Meditations," 
to the Doctors of the Sorbonne, he thus beautifully apolo- 
gizes for what might otherwise seem an ambitious thing : 
'* I wished to avail myself of authority, because Truth is so 
little a tiling when she is alone," 



RENE DESCARTES. 235 

§ 3. — The System. 

The peculiar features of the Cartesian philosophy may 
best be learned by an examination or analysis of his two 
principal works, of a strictly philosophical nature, " The 
Method " and " The Meditations," which contain the main 
principles of his system. The Method opens with an ac- 
count of the mental process by which he came to doubt of 
many things commonly receiyed.. It is an exceedingly in- 
teresting narrative of the struggles of a noble mind, reach- 
ing after truth with a determined earnestness which no 
difficulties could overcome or turn back from its purpose. 
Having learned in the schools whatever others had learned, 
and, not content with that, having run through all the 
books most curious and rare on which he could lay his 
hands, and finding to his surprise so little certainty and so 
much doubt about all the matters thus investigated, that 
m philosophy, for example, which had been cultivated by 
the best minds for ages, there was not yet to be found one 
thing which was not disputed, while other sciences, deriv- 
ing their principles from philosophy, could of course be no 
more solid and reliable than the foundations on which they 
were built, he comes to doubt of almost everything — ^to 
doubt if there be any such thing as positive truth and 
certainty, in the whole circle of human knowledge, and to 
regard whatever is only probable, as very likely false. He 
casts about him to find some way of discovering and sep- 
arating the true from the false, the certain from the doubt- 
ful in this mingling of truth and error. The careful man- 
ner in which geometricians proceed leads him to ques- 
tion whether, with a like process^ he might not arrive at 
like results in other departments of knowledge ; might not 
in them also reach clear and certain convictions of truth. 
Such a method of procedure he resolves to adopt : 1, 
never to take anything for true, which he does not hnow to 
be so, which does not present itself so clearly to his mind 



236 BENE DESCAETES. 

that he shall never have occasion to call it in question ; 2, 
to break up every difficulty into its constituent parts for ex- 
amination : 3, to begin with the things most simple and 
easy to know, and proceed gradually to the more difficult 
and complex ; and finally to make so complete a survey as 
to be sure that nothing has escaped him. Applying these 
rules, he begins by pulling down and tearing away ad 
liMtum whatever he thought himself already to have known, 
calling in question all preconceived opinions however ven- 
erable and sacred, not indeed as the sceptics who doubt for 
for the sahe of doubting, but only in order to arrive by this 
means at some certainty of knowledge and faith. At the 
outset, and at a single stroke, all the impressions made 
through the senses are discarded, for these are often found 
to be erroneous. So also are his own mental convictions 
and judgments ; for the things which he thinks, and sees, 
and does, in his waking moments, he not unfrequently 
thinks, and sees, and does, in his sleep ; and how can he 
know that they are any more real in the one case than the 
other ? But granting all this, that the evidence of the 
senses, and even his own mental impressions and convic- 
tions, are unreliable, one thing is and must be unquestion- 
ably true, that is, he certainly tliinks that these things are 
thus and thus, they seem to Mm so and so ; and from this it 
follows that he himself exists ; for even if the thing thought 
be called in question, it is impossible to deny that there is 
a thinker ; the very doubt implies a doubter. Hence the 
famous proposition, the starting point and first principle of 
the Cartesian philosophy, viz., Cogito, ergo Sum. 

It is, however, not of himself as a natural or bodily sub- 
stance, but only as a thinker, that he is thus made certain ; in 
other words, of the spiritual existence, the soul in distinction 
from the body. But among his thoughts he finds one un- 
like others — the thought, that is, of an absolutely perfeco 
and infinite being. Whence comes that thought, and what 
of it ? Not from himself, surely, for there is nothing in 



REKE DESCARTES. 237 

himself corresponding to such an idea, and the greater 
cannot proceed from the less, nor something from nothing. 
There must be some reality, some being containing in 
himself all those perfections of which his own inferior mind 
is able to form the idea ; else he would never have had the 
idea of such a being more perfect than himself. That 
being, perfect and inj&nite, is G-od. 

These two things established, these two grand corner- 
stones fairly laid — his own existence as a spiritual being, 
and the existence of an infinite and perfect Intelligence, 
from whom his own spiritual being and power of thought 
proceed — the way is ready to build on this foundation the 
solid structure of human knowledge ; and on this basis, in 
the Cartesian philosophy, everything is made to rest. All 
certainty depends on these two grand principles : There 
is a me ; a thinking, feeling, spiritually active, in other 
words, conscious being ; there is also a Being, infinite 
and perfect, as I am not, the source of the me and of all 
its powers, who, as perfect, cannot be himself a deceiver, 
nor have made me to be always deceived. The veracity of 
our faculties is thus established, and the way is open to a 
certain knowledge of whatever lies within the grasp or com- 
pass of those faculties. Such is substantially, and in brief, 
the famous method of Descartes. 

The same plan is substantially followed in the '^ Medita- 
tions,'* the direct object of which work is to elaborate more 
fully and carefully the argument for the existence of the 
soul as a spiritual and immortal reality, and of God as the 
infinite and absolutely perfect being. 

As before, he begins with doubting. Knowledge comes 
through the channel of the senses, and these have often 
deceived him. He seems to himself to be at the present 
moment seated before the fire, in his dressing robe, with 
papers in his hands, yet how often has he in sleep really 
thought he was thus seated and occupied, when really 
he was in his bed. Since he has so often been mistaken 



238 RENE DESCARTES. 

as to tlie reality of such impressions, how is he to know 
what to depend upon ? Is there, then, nothing cer- 
tain ? The exact sciences must surely be exceptions, for 
whether he be awake or asleep it is equally certain that 3 
and 2 make 5, and that the square has only four sides. 
But what if, according to an idea he has long entertained, 
some being were his creator, and in making him to be what 
he is, what if this creator had so constituted him that he 
should always come to a false conclusion whenever he adds 
3 and 2, or numbers the sides of a square ? Is he too good 
for that ? Then why does he permit him ever to be 
deceived, as he often is ? Suppose, then, that there is in 
fact no such thing as light, sound, extension, figure, etc., 
but all such impressions are only a deception and illusion 
practised upon men by some deceitful and powerful being — 
granting all this, still one thing is certain, there is and 
must be such a being as himself ; for whether he really sees, 
hears, touches the external object, or not, it certainly seems 
to him that he does, he thinks he does ; and this necessarily 
involves the existence of the nature or being that so thinks. 
He then proceeds, as before, to establish the certainty 
of the divine existence. Upon analyzing and classifpng the 
various ideas which he finds in his mind, he perceives one, 
the objective reality of which is so far superior to anything 
in himself, that he clearly cannot be the source of it, it 
cannot have originated in his own mind — and that is the 
idea of a being infinite, eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, 
all- creating. These qualities are so excellent, so far beyond 
anything which he finds in himself, that it seems impossi- 
ble that the idea of such a being could have originated with 
himself ; for how could the finite originate the infinite ? It 
is not simply the negative of the finite, for he has in some 
sense a clearer and more positive conception of the infinite 
than of the finite. How does he know the finite and 
imperfect, and that he himself is so, except as he has in 
the mind the idea of a being more perfect than himself ? 



REKE DESCARTES. 239 

It is from this idea of the infinite then, that the idea of the 
finite is derived, and not the reyerse. Whence, then, this 
idea, and how comes the mind to form it ? Not through 
the senses, for there is no external manifestation of any 
object corresponding to this idea ; nor is it wrought in the 
mind's own laboratory, a fiction of the brain, for he cannot 
in his own thoughts add anything to, or subtract anything 
from it. It is then, a fixed, immutable idea. It must have 
been created with the mind itself, " the marTc of the worh- 
man impressed on his worlc.^^ There is a fine passage 
occurring at the close of this demonstration of the being of 
a God, which brings out the religious spirit of the man in 
distinction from the mere philosopher, ^^But before I press 
on to the consideration of other truths, I wish here to pause 
a little, while in the contemplation of God himself, to think 
oyer leisurely with myself his maryellous attributes, and to 
consider, admire, adore, the incomparable beauty of this 
immense luminary, so far as the force of my mind, which 
is dazzled thereby, may be able to bear it. For as faith 
assures us that the sovereign felicity of another life consists 
only in the contemplation of the Divine majesty, so from 
the like contemplation now, though far less perfect, we 
perceive ourselves deriving the greatest pleasure of which 
we are capable in this life. 

In the meditation which follows, Descartes gives still 
another form of argument for the divine existence, derived 
from the same source, the nature of the idea which the 
human mind forms of the divine being. He finds that he 
cannot separate the idea of actual existence from the idea 
which he forms of God ; cannot think of him as not 
existing ; can no more separate in thought the actual exist- 
ence from the essence of the divine being, than he can 
separate in thought from the essence of a triangle the fact 
that its three angles are equal to two right angles, or 
from the idea of a mountain the idea of a corresponding 
valley. Not that the conception of a triangle, or of a moun- 



240 



RENE DESCARTES. 



tain and valley, necessarily involves the existence of these 
objects — that is not the argument, as Morell seems to sup- 
pose. Descartes distinctly disclaims this idea. ^' From the 
fact that I cannot think of a mountain without a valley, 
it does not follow that anywhere a mountain and a valley 
exist, but only that mountain and valley, whether they 
exist or not, are not able to be dissociated from each other ; 
and so from the fact that I cannot think of God except as 
existing, it follows that existence is inseparable from God, 
and thence that he really exists ; . . . for it is not in 
my power to think of God without existence, that is to say, 
of the most perfect being without the chief and JiigJiest per- 
fection of all." The only question respecting the validity 
of this reasoning is, does it necessarily follow that God exists, 
because we cannot conceive of him as non-existent ? Grant- 
ing the premises that whatever pertains necessarily to the 
idea, pertains also to the corresponding reality, if there he 
one, it is certain that there is in any given case a reality 
corresponding to our conceptions ? The most perfect being 
conceivable would be one possessing a certain attribute, a 
OY X ; I cannot conceive of the being as without that attri- 
bute ; but is there such a being ? This previous question 
remains unanswered, as it seems to me. Some of the most 
acute minds, however, have conceded the validity of the 
above argument. 

Whatever may be thought of the methods of reasoning 
now presented, certain it is that the author makes high 
claim for them. In his prefatory epistle he says : "I 
dare even propose them for most certain and most evident 
propositions. I will add, even, that they are such that I do 
not suppose any way lies open to the human mind by 
v/hich better ones can ever be found." He believes them 
" to equal, or even surpass in certainty the demonstrations 
of geometry." He is well aware, however, that they are 
of such a nature as to be understood and appreciated by 
but few ; and for this reason he wrote the Meditations in 



EEKE DESCAETES. 241 

Latin, and not in French and in a form to be generally 
read, lest feeble minds might think it was meant for them. 
He counsels no one to read the work who, is not willing to 
meditate seriously and intently with him, and who cannot 
detach the mind from all the associations of sense ; and 
the number of such persons he knows to be very small 
indeed. 

Of the system as developed in the works now analyzed, 
the following are evidently the characteristic features : 

1. The starting point of the whole system, the hasis 
of all belief and certainty, is doubt. Doubt everything. It 
is only when, in this way, you at last reach something 
which cannot be doubted, that you strike the real and 
only solid foundations of rational beHef . 

2. The mind itself is the field of observation. The 
appeal is much to consciousness throughout. This is the 
stand point, the meridian line in all the observations. 
This is where the anchor first holds as we drive before the 
storm on the sea of doubt and uncertainty, " Cogito, ergo 
sum." Even the knowledge of God, on which all other 
knowledge depends, is sought and found in the soul itself. 
Instead of going out of himself to find God, Descartes 
descends into himself and brings up God out of the depths 
of his own existence ; finds there the maker's name 
stamped on his innermost works. 

3. This fact once established, that there is an infinite 
and perfect being, and the certainty of our knowledge, the 
veracity of our faculties, is guaranteed ; for an infinite 
and perfect being cannot be false, would not so constitute 
his creatures that they should be always deceived. We 
may therefore rely upon the testimony of our senses and 
the veracity of our faculties generally, and so we reach a 
sure and permanent basis of all knowledge* 

11 



242 RENE DESCARTES. 

g 4.— The Effect. 

What impress was left by this man and his system on his 
own and the succeeding ages ? A question not easy to an- 
swer. This, however, seems to be plain. To this man be- 
longs the honor, now generally conceded to him by discern- 
ing minds, of being the founder of modern philosophy. 
To the Method and the Meditations of Descartes, as the 
starting point, may be traced back both the Scotch and the 
German philosophy. It was he who led the way. It was 
he who first ventured to strike out a new path in philoso- 
phy. Bacon had done this in physics. Descartes did 
the same in metaphysics. Bacon went forth into the outer 
world, observed, explored, classified. Descartes, with equal 
penetration, passed at once into the inner world, that little 
but wonderful kingdom, the soul of man, a world which 
Bacon seems never really to have explored, and began his in- 
vestigations there. He was the first to discover and plant 
himself firmly on the true foundation of metaphysical 
science, the principle that the human consciousness is the 
true starting of all investigation, and an analysis of the facts 
of consciousness the only true method of scientific inquiry. 
Xo philosopher before Descartes had built a system on these 
principles, or explicitly announced them as such ; but once 
announced they commended themselves to every thinker 
and put a new phase not upon psychology alone, but upon 
all science. 

The tendency of the Baconian philosophy was doubtless 
to materialism. It built up a whole fabric of science on 
the observation of external things. It overlooked the inter- 
nal. It ran out into the sensationalism of Hobbes and Locke, 
and finally into the downright materialism of the school of 
Hartley and Priestley in England, and Condillac in France. 
The tendency of Cartesianism, on the other hand, was 
plainly to idealism, as subsequently developed in Spinoza 
and Malebranche. The outer world was nothing until the 



RENE DESCARTES. 243 

inner world had first been explored as the basis on which all 
knowledge of the outer might rest. It exalted the idea of the 
infinite so far above the finite^ as to throw the latter quite 
out of sight. God, the eternal, the infinite, the supreme, 
iu'ose ever before it as the only object worthy of human 
thought, and on this wonderful vision it fixed its eye, until, 
dimned by that brightness, it could see nothing else. Even 
eternal and necessary truths resolved themselves ultimately 
into the will of G-od. God was all and in all. The result 
in those who came after, and carried out the inherent ten- 
dencies of the system, was pantheism. 

No small part of the life and writings of Descartes was 
devoted to natural science. If in this he was prone to go 
beyond the facts into the region of theory and speculation, 
in his anxiety to reach some explanation, some law regulat- 
ing the observed facts, and if subsequent discoveries have 
proved his theories, however brilliant, not always correct, 
his system, however grand and imposing, not always the true 
philosophy of nature, it must still be conceded that he was 
greatly in advance of his age, even in those matters where 
to us he seems chiefly to have erred, and that no man did 
more by his investigations and reflections to promote the 
progress of physical science and to hasten its subsequently 
more complete development, than Eene Descartes. One 
would entirely mistake, who should think of him as devoting 
his life and studies to metaphysical pursuits. With him 
the metaphysics were merely the foundation on which to 
construct a system of physics ; and in this he builded 
better than he knew, for while in the .progress and subse- 
quent development of science, the superstructure which 
Descartes erected no longer remains, the foundation stands 
the only true and solid basis of a sound philosophy. Nor 
are the studies of Descartes of little value in natural sci- 
ence, as Morell seems to suppose. No one has investigated 
more diligently, or stated more correctly the general phe- 
nomena of nature than Descartes. 



244 REHE DESCAETES. 

The nature and properties of light, the nature, laws, 
and moyements of the atmosphere, were well understood by 
him, and for a century at least these branches of science 
remained essentially where he left them. It was to the 
observations of Descartes that Pascal was indebted for the 
idea of the experiment by which he demonstrated what 
Galileo and Torricelli had taught respecting the weight of 
the atmosphere. It was Descartes who first correctly and 
fully explained the law by which the rainbow flings its 
arch over the troubled sky and presides in beauty over the 
retreating march of the tempest. He carried the science 
of mechanics to a perfection it had not before attained. 
He took up the telescope where Gralileo had left it, de- 
veloped the theory and perfected the mechanism of the 
instrument, and made of it a new thing. A treatise on 
music, composed at the age of twenty-two, passed after his 
death into many languages. With a view to understand 
the structure of the human frame, he devoted himself for 
some years to the study of anatomy and chemistry ; and the 
work published after his death, which embodied the result 
of these labors, ranks among his best productions. 

It was in mathematics, however, that Descartes made 
the greatest advance, and stood preeminent, the foremost 
man of his time. He first greatly simplified the science of 
algebra, reducing the number of signs, and introducing 
the method of representing by letters the forms of quanti- 
ties ; and having perfected this instrument, applied the 
algebraic process to geometry, which no one had dreamed 
of uniting with it, and thus gave more progress to that 
science than had been made in it for centuries. The anal- 
ysis of Descartes, it has been justly said, has been the 
instrument of all the great discoveries of the Moderns. 

From this brief survey it will appear how wide was 
the field of Descartes' investigations, and how little he 
deserves to be regarded as merely a metaphysician. One 
can pardon the enthusiasm of his countryman and eulogist, 



RENE DESCARTES. 245 

Thomas, when he affirms that "it was the fortune of Des- 
cartes to be able to approach no science which did not 
immediately assume a new aspect." 

Like most discoverers of truth, however, Descartes was 
too far in advance of his age to be fully appreciated by it. 
Commencing with most sciences, as geometry for example, 
where others had left off^ there were few who could follow 
him in his rapid march. In one of his letters, so full of 
childlike simplicity, we find him computing how many 
geometricians in Europe will be likely to understand him, 
viz., three or four in France, two in Holland, and two in 
Spain. Descartes has been often compared with Bacon. 
"If," says Thomas, " we seek among the great men of 
the Moderns some with whom to compare him, we find 
three. Bacon, Leihnitz,2i;n.di Newton. Bacon ran over the 
whole surface of human knowledge, sat in judgment on 
past ages, and ran on into the future ; but he indicated 
more great things than he executed. He raised the scaf- 
fold of an immense edifice, and left to others the work of 
putting together the edifice itself. Leibnitz was whatever 
he chose to be. He carried into philosophy a great lof- 
tiness of mind ; but his metaphysical systems seem designed 
to astonish and crush men down, rather than enlighten 
them." I^ewton, he goes on to say, following as he did 
Galileo, Kepler, Huygens, Bacon, and Descartes, profited 
by the labors of others, aud owes to them in part what 
he became. Descartes " deserves to be placed beside New- 
ton, for he created a part of Newton, while he was created 
only by himself." " Time has destroyed the opinions of 
Descartes, but his glory remains. He is like those kings 
dethroned, who, among the ruins even of their empire, 
seem born to command the world." 

The works on which I have chiefly relied in the prep- 
aration of the above, are the collected works of Descartes, 
in Latin, published in Amsterdam in 1656, and the French 
edition of his works, edited by Cousin, and published in 
Paris in 1824. 



246 s p I K z A. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SPIKOZA. 

Ik 1632, there was born in Amsterdam a Jew, one 
Spinoza, whose writings and whose name have been now for 
two centuries the admiration of half the reflecting world 
and the terror of the other half ; whose influence has been 
felt over all Europe, and feared farther than it has been felt ; 
who has been branded, now as an atheist, and now as a pan- 
theist, and not unfrequently as both ; whose calm, fearless 
mind shrunk from no difficulties and no consequences, but 
moved straight and steadily onward with its inexorable 
logic, its geometrical precision, its terrible self-reliance, to 
the investigation of the profoundest problems of philoso- 
phy and to conclusions from which a mind less honest and 
fearless, and less conscious of its own integrity and its own 
strength, would have shrunk back at once and forever. It 
is pleasant to be reminded that this strange and profound 
thinker was once a boy like the rest of the world, in those 
busy Dutch streets of the olden times, watching the ships — 
wondering at many things. 

He was a feeble and sickly lad ; but for this all the 
more thoughtful and studious. The energy which nature in- 
tended at that early period of life to be expended in muscular 
activity and athletic sports, sought in him another direction, 
mounted to the brain, quickened the intellect, and instead 
of passing off in the more usual form of leap-frog and 
other boyish amusements, set the lad upon thinking, observ- 
ing, reflecting, questioning, and opened to him that broad 
and wonderful field of thought — the mysteries and problems 
of his own conscious being. 

The parents of Spinoza were humble and honest people, 
merchants of Amsterdam, whither they had fled from the 



SPINOZA. 247 

persecutions encountered by the Jews in Spain. The boy 
was at first destined to a commercial life, but such was his 
unusual fondness for study, and the remarkable develop- 
ment of his intellect, that his parents altered their purpose, 
and determined to give him a rabbinical education. Ac- 
cordingly the Old Testament and the Talmud became his 
principal studies, and such was his proficiency in these as 
to excite the highest hopes of the great rabbi, Saul Levi 
Morteira, his instructor. But alas, a cloud oft obscures 
the brightest morning. It was soon discovered, most un- 
fortunately, that this promising lad was not a little disposed 
to think for himself — possessed one of those inquiring, 
penetrating, restless minds, so much the terror of mere 
parchment and ritual expounders, which are never content 
with mere facts and statements, but are ever prying into 
the reasons, and demanding the why and wherefore of 
things. The great rabbi had trouble enough with his 
hopeful pupil. Difficulties were started, questions were 
put, from wliich all good rabbis, great and small, piously 
shrunk back, What does the boy mean ? Will he not 
believe the Talmud and the tradition ? What right has he 
to ask questions, and to have thoughts and opinions of his 
own in such matters ? They threaten the youth. He coolly 
defies their rage. He shall be excommunicated. Very 
well. Excommmunicate if you like, I anticipate your 
kind intentions by voluntarily withdrawing from your 
community ; and so, with bitter sarcasm, he turns on his 
heel and walks out of their ranks to return no more. 
Foiled in this attempt, they offer him a pension of a thou- 
sand florins, to be silent and retain some nominal connection 
with their body. He is indignant at the bribe. His life 
is next attempted. An assassin aims at his breast a deadly 
blow, but misses his mark. ]N"othing remains but to execute 
the sentence of excommunication. The day arrives. A 
vast concourse assembles. Black candles are lighted — the 
books of the Law are onened. The chanter sounds aloud, 



248 SPINOZA. 

in solemn tones, tTie fearful curse, and is answered back by 
the notes of the trumpet. The black candles are reversed, 
and melt drop by drop into a tub of blood. The fearful and 
final anathema is pronounced, the lights are plunged into 
the blood, and in that sudden and solemn darkness the 
assembly, filled with fear and sorrow, shout Amen. And 
so poor Spinoza gets his first degree — the only one they 
ever gave him. 

Having now fairly finished his Talmudic education, 
Spinoza, cast upon his own resources, finds a friend and 
patron, Yan den Ende, a physician in Amsterdam and 
teacher of philology, from whose fair and accomplished 
daughter, Spinoza takes lessons in Latin and in love. He 
seems to have succeeded better in the former branch of 
study than the latter. The lady prefers a young Ham- 
burg merchant to a penniless excommunicated Jew ; and 
Spinoza, disappointed in love, betakes himself more vigor- 
ously to his Latin. It was a happy day for him when the 
writings of Descartes fell into his hands. He read them 
with avidity. They were precisely that food and sustenance 
for the eager mind reaching after truth, which he had 
long needed. Here he found instruction, light, rest. He 
stood now upon a sure basis, and felt that he could mark 
out for himself, at last, a definite object and pursuit in life. 
He is poor but independent. He knows a trade, and can 
support himself by his own labor ; and content with little, 
master of his own time and pursuits, can devote himself to 
reflection and study. And this he does. By polishing 
glasses for optical instruments, which he does with a skill 
that attracts the notice of Leibnitz, he earns a competence, 
and still reserves his best moments for philosophy. How 
moderate were his wants, and how simple his style of fare, 
may be judged from the fact that a dish of soup, which 
cost three half pence, and a pot of beer, costing three far- 
things more, sufficed often for the day's provisions. As to 
clothing, he said it was not good sense to put a precious 



SPIKOZA. 249 

envelope on things of little or no value. Yet this same 
man, supporting himself by his own labor, and living upon 
four pence a day that he might gain the more time for 
study, is charged, among other things, with Epicureanism. 
If this is Epicureanism, may the disciples of that school 
never be wanting. So little desire for gold had Spinoza, that 
one of his friends, one day, having offered him a present of 
2,000 florins, he resolutely refused it, on the ground that so 
much wealth would divert him from his studies. He pre- 
vented this same friend, the generous and wealthy De Yries, 
from leaving him a handsome legacy in his will — actually 
made him alter the will already drawn up, and finally con- 
sented to receive from the heirs, a pension of 300 florins 
only, instead of 500 which they urged upon him. The 
talents of Spinoza, and his growing reputation, alarmed his 
enemies, who finally stirred up the magistrates to banish 
him, in a sort, from Amsterdam, as a dangerous person to 
the peace and public morals. So upon exile, half volun- 
tary, half compulsory, he leaves his native city, and retir- 
ing to Rhynsburg, and afterward to the Hague, devotes him- 
self with new assiduity and zeal to his favorite studies. 
So wholly absorbed was he in these pursuits, and so fond of 
solitude, that sometimes for months together he hardly 
quitted his cabinet. Here he had all he desired : profound 
peace, long leisure, the few books that he valued — and they 
were very few, for, like all other truly great and original 
minds, he read little and thought much — and a few friends 
who listened to him ; here he studied, he thought, he 
philosophized, to his heart's content. It was in this retreat 
that he published his first work, an exposition of Descartes' 
philosophy, which by its clearness and masterly compre- 
hension of the system of that great man, at once attracted 
great attention. The Prince of Oonde invites him now to 
Erance, the retreat of letters and science at this time ; 
but having no disposition to dedicate his next work to 
Louis XIV., which would in that case be expected of him, 
11* 



250 SPINOZA. 

he declines the offer, and prefers to keep on living in soli- 
tude at a few pence a day. The Elector Palatine also 
inyites him to Heidelberg, to the chair of philosophy ; but 
this, too, he declines, on the ground that the state religion 
might cramp somewhat his liberty of independent thought, 
and also on the ground that the duties of instruction 
would necessarily demand time which he could ill spare 
from his studies. 

His death occurred in 1677, at the age of forty-four. 
Feeble in constitution, and never, in the course of life, 
enjojdng good health, his system was doubtless enfeebled by 
his absorbing devotion to study (continued from ten at night 
till three in the morning), his solitary mode of life, his 
abstemiousness, his too arduous labors. '^ He was a calm, 
brave man," says one of his biographers. "He could con- 
front disease and death as he had confronted poverty and 
persecution. Bravery of the highest kind distinguished 
him through life, and was not likely to fail him on the 
quitting it, and yet beneath that calm, cold stoicism, there 
was a childlike gayety springing from a warm and sympa- 
thizing heart. His character was made up of generous sim- 
plicity and heroic forbearance." 

" His humor and his manners," says Damiron, " were 
in perfect harmony with his vocation. He was neither 
melancholy nor gay, but calm, mild and moderate ; affable^ 
and compassionate, and, what is perhaps more remarkable, 
full of tolerance and respect for the belief of others." 
"His figure," says another, "has an air of recollection 
and meditation ; his eye announces an immovable courage, 
his mouth betrays an agreeable modesty, a slight tinge of 
sadness seems to cast a shadow over all his traits." Such 
was Spinoza in habits, character, and life. 

The principal works of Spinoza are the " Principles of the 
Philosophy of Descartes," published 1664, and the " Cogitata 
Metaphysica," in the same year, and the " Theologie Poli- 
tique," six years after. It was not until after his death, how- 



S P I N^ Z A, ^51 

ever, that liis most important treatises were published, viz., 
the Ethics, the Politics, and the treatise on the improvement 
of the understanding (^*^ De Emendatione Intellectus)." It 
is in these posthumous works that his system can best be 
learned, for in these only is his doctrine fully developed. 
His earlier treatises were designed rather to prepare the way 
for his own peculiar doctrines, than as a full expression 
of them. 

The style of Spinoza is peculiarly concise, severe, logi- 
cal ; setting forth in the plainest manner, with fewest 
words, and little ornament or elegance, just the simple 
thought that was to be expressed — tha*^^ and nothing more ; 
but that in a way not to be mistaken. As a reasoner and 
metaphysician he is marked by the boldness with which he 
states, a,nd follows out to their legitimate conclusions, whatever 
positions he assumes, never shrinking from any unpleasant 
or even apparently absurd consequences. He handles his 
themes with the air and bearing of a master, who thoroughly 
understands himself and the instrument on which he plays ; 
and touches the keys, not with a trembling and hesitating 
hand, but with a positiveness and boldness and certainty, and 
yet with a precision which awaken the admiration of the 
observer. He never seems to ask himself, Is such a conclusion 
reasonable ? but simply, Does it justly and necessarily follow 
from my premises ? He marks out his path ; fixes the direc- 
tion and aim of his movements, and having decided upon 
this, steadily pursues that path, and that direction, and that 
object, come what will. If a precipice lies in his way, he 
walks deliberately on and deliberately over, with the most 
resolute determination, the most utter disregard of results. 

This process, though admirable in many respects, is 
not always and altogether safe for a finite and limited mind. 
One ought to have a clearer and more complete survey 
of the whole field of thought at the outset, than any finite 
mind can ever have, in order rightly to choose a path and 
direction that shall in no event be deviated from in the 



252 SPINOZA. 

least degree. Omniscience might work in that way. Yet, 
to omniscience what need of reasoning at all ? Spinoza was 
led to this method of reasoning by his mathematical pro- 
pensities. Accustomed to start in geometry with principles 
whose truth is beyond question, and then to follow out 
step by step a process of reasoning based upon those princi- 
ples, to a conclusion perfectly inevitable and certain, he 
demanded a like method and certainty in all reasoning on 
abstract truth ; was not satisfied with anything less ; ap- 
plied to metaphysics a method strictly applicable only to 
mathematics, and felt as little responsibility for the conclu- 
sions thus reached as for the result of a demonstration in 
Euclid. It was this that led him astray in his reasonings. 
He forgot that with respect to ideas of time, space, spirit, 
good, eyil, and other abstract and purely metaphysical 
ideas, it is impossible either to lay down at the outset pre- 
mises that shall be as certain and definite, or to reason as 
positively and as surely from those premises as we can about 
the points, and lines, and ratios of mathematical science. 
This, if I mistake, not, is the key of his entire mistake, 
the grand secret of his total aberration. 

Another peculiarity of his method is, that he invariably 
pursues the a priori process, begins with ontology , with 
being in general, and reasons downward to particulars. The 
" Cogitata Metaphysica," e. g., is divided into two parts, 
the first of which treats of being, the second of God and 
the soul. Under the first he discusses existence , essence, 
the real, the necessary, the contingent, time and duration, 
the one, the true, etc. From these purely ontological heights 
he descends to treat, in the second part, of the nature of 
God ; and so, by this high avenue of approach, he comes at 
length to consider the human soul. Spinoza was through- 
out, in all his tendencies and all his wiitings, a pure 
ontologist. 

But it is time to lay before you more exactly the out- 
lines of his system. In general it may be said that Spinoza 



SPINOZA. 253 

starts from tlie position and ground principles of Descartes, 
and rigorously carries out those principles to tlieir extreme. 
He is a Cartesian, differing only in minor points as he pro- 
ceeds, and in the conclusions at which he arrives by logi- 
cally carrying out the main principles of the system. Du- 
gald Stuart is hardly correct in affirming that Spinoza agreed 
with Descartes in little else than his physical principles, 
and that no two philosophers ever differed more widely in 
their metaphysical and theological tenets. In their phi- 
losophy they mainly agreed. In their results and conclu- 
sions they differed, and for the reason stated. The system 
of Spinoza may perhaps best be viewed as developed in the 
"Ethics," his most elaborate and complete work. This is in 
five parts : of which the first treats of G-od, the second of 
the soul, the third of the affections, the fourth and fifth of 
servitude and liberty. The arrangement and treatment 
are strictly mathematical. It begins with definitions and 
axioms. Then follow propositions based upon these. Da- 
miron says of this treatise that, with the exception of the 
prefaces and Scolia, in which the author resigns himself to 
the use of common s]jeech, there is from beginning to end 
but one massive and compact argument, in which there is 
not a thought, not a phrase, not a word, which is not 
closely connected with the whole on which it depends. 

Among the definitions with which the work opens, the 
following are the more important. Substance is defined 
to be that which is, in itself, and is conceived by itself. 
Attribute is that which is conceived of substance as 
constituting its essence. Mode is an accident or affection 
of substance. G-od is the being absolutely infinite, or the 
substance consisting of infinite attributes, each expressing 
his infinite and eternal essence. A thing is free which 
exists by the sole necessity of its nature, and by itself alone 
is determined to action. 

To these definitions he strictly adheres in his whole 
treatise. Several axioms follow these definitions. Among 



254 SPINOZA. 

which these : 1. Everything which is, is in itself, or in 
some other thing. 2. That which cannot be conceived 
through another, per aliud, must he conceived per se. 

3. From a given determinate cause, the effect necessarily 
follows ; and, vice versa, no determinate cause, no effect. 

4. The knowledge of an effect depends on the knowledge 
of the cause, and includes it. 5. Things having nothing in 
common with each other cannot be understood by means 
of each other, i, e., the conception of one does not include 
that of the other. 6. A true idea must agree with its 
original nature. 7. Whatever can be clearly conceived as 
non-existing does not in its essence involve existence. 

From these follow certain propositions. 1. Substance 
is prior in nature to its accidents. 2. Two substances hav- 
ing different attributes have nothing in common with each 
other. This follows from the definition of substance as a 
thing conceived in and through itself. 3. Of things which 
have nothing in common, one cannot be the cause of the 
other. The demonstration is, that having nothing in com- 
mon they cannot (Axiom 5 th) be conceived by means of 
each other, and so (accordingly to Axiom 4th) one cannot 
be the cause of the other. 

Peop. IV. Two or more distinct things can be distin- 
guished only by the diversity of their attributes or of their 
modes. V. It is impossible that there should be two or more 
substances of the same nature or of the same attribute. 
For they could not be distinguished from each other. 
Hence VI. One siibstance cannot te created hy another sub- 
stance ; since there cannot be two substances with the same 
attributes, and so having nothing in common one cannot 
(Prop. 3d) be the cause of the other. It follows from this, 
by corollary, that substance cannot be created by anything 
else, since there is nothing in nature but substance and its 
modes. Hence VII. It pertains to the nature of substance 
to exist ; or it is the cause of itself. VIII. All substance is 
necessarily infinite ; for if finite it must be so (Definition 



s p I K z A. 255 

2d) by virtue of another substance of the same attribute — 
which is impossible (Prop. 5th). The result of this chain 
of reasoning is this. There is only one substance, and that 
is infinite. God is that infinite sichstance. Whatever exists, 
exists in him. He is the one being of which all things 
are but the manifestations ; he the sole substance ; every- 
thing else a mode of that substance. He is the efficient 
universal cause of all things, not indeed transitively but 
immanently, and his attributes are eternal and infinite. 
They are two in number : extension and thought. These 
two attributes he regards as the one objective, the other 
subjective ; extension is visible thought. Thought is in- 
visible extension. God is the identity of the two, that is, 
the substance in vfhich both unite ; the root from which 
both spring — as man is the identity or ground of union of 
soul and body. Everything is a mode of Grod's extension ; 
every thought, wish, feeling, a mode of his thought. God 
is the only existence, though there are many existing things ; 
the only substance, though many powers — the one and all. 
Such, in outline, is his system. 

It will be perceived that these conclusions follow inevit- 
ably from the definitions and axioms laid down at the out- 
set, and as these are essentially Cartesian, it is impossible 
for a disciple of that school, however he may shrink from 
the conclusions, to escape them. Once within the current 
and vortex of this irresistible geometrical reasoning and 
there is no escape. Tissot hesitates not to say that this 
system is one of the strongest and most admirable concep- 
tions of the human mind, viewed merely as a system of 
ontological reasoning, a hypothetical system, towering aloft 
with a majestic grandeur. He thinks it impossible for the 
ancient metaphysics to overthrow this system. It can be 
done, he thinks, only by admitting, with Kant, that the 
ontological conceptions of pure reason, the categories of 
substance, mode, cause, effect, etc. , have no real and objec- 
tive value apart from the sphere of experience. However 



256 SPINOZA. 

that may be, it is doubtless true, as Tissot admits, that 
nothing is more easily overthrown than a system logically 
and closely reasoned out from given principles, provided 
you can attack and show the falsity of those principles. 
And this is precisely what can be done in the present case. 
The system is entirely built on principles that will not stand 
the test of critical examination. "We have but to attack 
these, and the building falls. Examine any one of the fun- 
damental positions of this curious, and in many respects, 
wonderful fabric of human reason, you will perceive its 
falsity. Substance, says Spinoza, is that luliich is, in, and 
hy, itself. True, we say, of some substance, but not all ; 
of uncreated substance, and that only ; true only of Deity. 
Spinoza in this postulate begs the whole question, assumes 
that there are not, and cannot be, any other than self -exist- 
ent substances. Neither is it true that substance is infin- 
ite, indivisible, unique. This again is applicable only to 
that class of substances which is self-existent — to the Deity. 
We deny that this class or definition exhausts the idea of 
substance. 

It is not true that things can be distinguished only by 
the diversity of their attributes. We distinguish them in 
other ways ; by circumstances extrinsic and accidental to 
the things themselves ; by place ; by number ; nay, by the 
different degrees in which the same attributes may be pos- 
sessed by each. Hence it is not true that there cannot be 
two substances possessing the same attribute, on the ground 
of its being impossible to distinguish them, for no such 
impossibility exists. And if there may be two substances 
of the same attribute, then it is not true that one substance 
may not be the cause of another ; for the two have some- 
thing in common. There may be, tlien, a diversity of sub- 
stances, created and uncreated, finite and infinite. Grod is 
not, in a word, the unique and only substance. The sys- 
tem falls the moment you attack the definition of substance 
on which the whole is built. 



SPINOZA. 257 

It is hardly necessary to remark that Spinoza is a fatal- 
ist. The will of Deity is the mainspring of all motion and 
Tolition ; literally, and not metaphorically, we do live and 
move and have our being in him. Our thoughts and 
passions are only the movements of the eternal mind. 
That mind acts according to the laws of its own nature ; 
acts, without constraint ; is the only free cause. But 
in what sense free ? Only with the liberty of necessity, 
not of choice. All things, he says, flow on necessarily ; 
always, by the same necessity, follow ; just as from the 
nature of the triangle it follows, from eternity to eternity, 
that the three angles are equal to two right angles : where- 
fore the omnipotence of God was, in act, from eternity, and 
will to eternity remain in the same actuahty. Nothing is 
contingent, he holds, since everything is determined, to act 
and to be, by the necessity of its nature. This is fatalism 
surely ; but, as Damiron well remarks, it is fatalism arising 
from excess of theism, rather than want of it. 

Was Spinoza then an atheist ? Never a man further 
from it. How is he an atheist, who sees everywhere and 
everything Grod and God only. It is not without reason 
that Schleiermacher calls him the God-intoxicated man. 
Was he a pantheist ? Most surely, in one sense of that 
term. There are two sorts of pantheism, it has been well 
said. The one brings God down to nature, and annihilates 
him in it ; sees no other God, no higher being, than the 
universe. This is true and proper pantheism. The other, 
which passes for the same thing but is widely diverse from 
it, carries nature up to God, and loses sight of it, annihi- 
lates it in him. This was Spinoza's pantheism. In this 
sense alone was he a pantheist. 

Cousin pays the following very just, though glowing 
tribute to this philosopher : 

"Ear from being an atheist, of which he is accused, 
Spinoza possesses so strongly the sentiment of God that he 
loses the sentiment of man. This temporary and limited 



258 S P I K z A. 

existence, everything that is finite, seems to him unworthy 
of the name of existence, and for him there is no true being 
but the eternal being. This book, bristling as it is, in the 
manner of the times, with geometrical formulae, so dry and 
so repulsive in its style, is at foundation a mystic hymn, a 
transport, a yearning of the soul toward him who alone 
can legitimately say : I am that I am. . . . 

'' His life was the symbol of his system. Adoring the 
eternal, ever in the presence of the infinite, he disdained 
this passing world ; he knew neither pleasure, nor action, 
nor glory, for he did not suspect his own. Young, he 
desired to know love ; but he knew it not, because he did 
not inspire it. Poor and suffering, his life was spent in 
waiting for and meditating upon death. He lived in a 
suburb of the city, where, gaining as a polisher of glass, 
the little bread and milk necessary for his subsistence ; 
hated, repudiated by the men of his communion, suspected 
by all others ; detested by all the clergy of Europe, w4iom 
he wished to subject to the state ; escaping persecutions and 
outrages only by concealment ; humble and silent ; of a gen- 
tleness and patience that were proof to everything ; passing 
along in this world without wishing to stop in it, never 
dreaming of producing any effect upon it or of leaving any 
trace upon it — Spinoza was an Indian mouni, a Persian 
soufi, an enthusiastic monk ; the author whom this pre- 
tended atheist most resembles, is the unknown author of 
the 'Imitation of Jesus Christ'" (Cousin, "Fragments 
Philosophiques, article Spinoza '')• 



MALEBRANCHE. 259 



CHAPTER V. 



MALEBRAITCHE. 



CoN'TEMPORARY with Spinoza, and at the head in some 
respects of the literati of France, yet very little known as 
an author, and still less as a man, is Nicholas Malebranche. 
Born at Paris 1638 ; a weak and sickly child, afflicted with 
curvature of the spine ; on this account, like Spinoza, less 
attracted to the pursuits and pleasures of the external 
world, he was all the more a philosopher; of good 
family, of hereditary wealth and rank, one of his uncles 
having been viceroy of Canada, he was carefully educated 
under the eye of the mother, who seems to have had some 
considerable share in forming his youthful tastes for the 
investigation of profound and hidden truths. Studied phi- 
losophy at the College de la Marche, and theology at the 
Sorbonne. Destined to an ecclesiastical life, he refused 
a canonicate at Notre Dame, and connected himself with 
the Oratoire, a religious order distinguished for its devotion 
to St. Augustine and its attachment to Descartes. The 
masters under whom he was at first placed in this order 
sought to interest him in history and philosophy, but to no 
purpose, his mind found nothing congenial in these pursuits. 
One day, however, as he was passing down the rue St. 
Jacques, a bookseller put into his hands Descartes' treatise 
on man. He had heard much said of Descartes, but had 
never read him. With what charm, with what mental agita- 
tion and transport, does the young ecclesiastic peruse these 
pages. It was not the Discourse on Method, it was not 
the Meditations, it was not even the Philosophy, but only the 
Physiology of that great author, says the writer to whom I 
am indebted for this incident ; but it was his spirit, his 
reasoning, his manner of procedure, his way of philosophiz- 



360 MALEBRAKCHE. 

ing; and scarcely had Malebranche opened the book before he 
was capth'ated and profoundly moved, so much so that he 
was obliged to pause in his reading on account of the 
palpitation of the heart which was induced by his emotion. 
This was the beginning of his true career as a philosopher. 
He found in Descartes that which met the profound want 
of his intellectual nature ; that which he had never met 
before. From this moment his career as a thinker was 
decided. Without cessation or relaxation or any turning 
aside to other pursuits, he devotes himself thenceforward 
to one grand pursuit, the only one that seemed to him to 
be worthy the name of true science. 

The age was favorable for this man and his pursuits. 
Descartes was in the ascendant. One who should pro- 
foundly comprehend and clearly unfold his system, would 
be sure of approbation and success. In literature the 
great roll of illustrious authorship was nearly complete in 
France. Pascal, Bossuet, and Fenelon, had written prose. 
Corneille, Moliere, Eacine, La Fontaine, and Boileau, had 
handled the lyre. In style, the most perfect models were 
before our young aspirant, nor did he fall behind these 
models. Combining in himself the peculiar qualities of 
Pascal, Bossuet and Fenelon, the liveliness and force of the 
first, the loftiness and grand simplicity of the second, the 
peculiar grace of the last, his style is in many respects 
superior to that of any one of these singly, and it is not 
without reason that he is styled the Plato of Cartesianism. 
His thoughts are always lofty, his observations acute, his 
method luminous, his style attractive, his spirit earnest, 
truthful and sincere." 

His first work, the " Search for Truth " (" Eecherche de 
Verite "), was published in 1674, and met with the most 
flattering success. Subsequently, he published, chiefly by 
way of defending the principles of that treatise, and show 
ing their consistency with the dogmas of the church, the 
** Christian Conversations," and " Christian Meditations," 



MALEBRANCHE. 261 

and the treatise on " Nature and Grace." It was on a copy 
of this, which was sent him by the author, that Bossuet 
wrote the words of St. Augustine — Pulchra ; nova ; falsa. 

In 1684, appeared his ^^ Treatise on Morals/' and in the 
next year the *^ Eeflections Theologic and Philosophic." 
In 1688, his work on metaphysics appeared. Beside 
these, he published, at various times, several minor works. 
Beside these publications, he wrote much in the way of 
correspondence, in an age when men conversed much, and 
corresponded little. His letters, on important subjects, 
and addressed chiefly to distinguished persons, amount to 
more than 500. In addition to these he devoted much 
thought to physics and mathematics, and there are in the 
possession of the Academy of Sciences, many parcels of 
papers by him on this class of subjects. He was chiefly 
devoted to speculative studies. History, and the studies of 
mere erudition had no charm for him. He read little, and 
erased from his writings all that which, however valuable 
in other respects, advanced no information. " An insect," 
says Fontenelle, '^ interested him more than all Greek and 
Eoman history, and he had as little regard for that species 
of philosophy which consists only in learning the views of 
different philosophers." 

Had he read more, and been better acquainted with the 
history of philosophy, we cannot help thinking he would 
have philosophized better. 

In his mind and in his works, religion is ever in the 
first place ; philosophy is her handmaid. The two are 
closely and inseparably united, in his view, and ought 
never to be put asunder. " Eeligion is the true philoso- 
phy ; not that of pagans indeed^ nor of those who discourse 
hefore the truth has discoursed to them.^^ 

Season is not however to be subjected to faith. The 
reason of which he speaks is " infallible, immutable, in- 
corruptible ; ought ever to be mistress. God himself fol- 
lows her. Evidence, intelligence, is better than faith, for 



262 MALEBRANCHE. 

faith will pass away, but intelligence will eternally abide ; 
faith is a great good, but it is because she conducts to in- 
telligence." In this he differs toto ccelo from Spinoza, who 
divorces completely religion from philosophy, assigning to 
each a distinct and separate sphere. In the one, we see the 
mystic ; in the other the rationalist. 

His death occurred October 13, 1715 — hastened, it is 
said, by an interview and somewhat animated discussion 
with Berkeley, who, passing through Paris, called on him 
a few days previous to his decease. 

Such was Malebranche, as a man and as regards the 
leading events of his life ; one of the three great names 
that have adorned at once the Cartesian philosophy and 
the seventeenth century — trio illustrious : Spinoza, Male- 
branche, Leibnitz. 

Let us first take a bird's-eye view of his philosophy as a 
whole ; and then examine with more care its separate fea- 
tures, as we shall find them developed in his principal works. 

The general outline of his system may be thus given. 
He was a Cartesian in his principles and tendencies. The 
characteristic feature of his philosophy is the consistent 
carrying out and making prominent what in Descartes 
had lurked as only a tendency, a germ not fully developed, 
viz., the merging and losing sight of the finite in the 
infinite, of the human soul in God ; of all second causes 
in the great first cause, in the infinite ; the making God to 
be everything, and man nothing. 

In carrying out this view he makes but two kinds of 
existence in the world : body and spirit ; the qualities of 
the former, extension and mobility ; of the latter under- 
standing and will. Neither body nor spirit can act of 
itself, however, without the immediate will and power of 
the great first cause ; neither matter on mind, nor mind on 
matter. Hence as the ideas of all things exist in God, we 
see all things in him, in him live, move, have our being. 
What then, the use of matter at all ? To this he can give 



MALEBRAirCHE. 263 

no answer, but that it has pleased God to make a material 
world, and this he knows from revelation only. Gen. i. is 
all that stands between him and blank, complete idealism. 

Such in mere outline is his system. Let us look at it 
more closely as developed in his principal works, " The 
Inquiry after Truth " and the ^* Ethics." 

The design of the former work is to point out the errors 
derived from the senses, imagination, understanding, pro- 
pensities, and passions, and also the causes and remedies of 
the same. 

It is divided into six books. The first points out the 
errors of sense, and in so doing strikes at the root of the 
evidence for a material world. It begins by an analysis or 
classification of the powers of the mind. The soul is indi- 
visible, yet of two parts : one passive, the mind or under- 
standing ; the other, passive and active both at once, i. e., 
the will. The understanding has for its modifications, or 
faculties as we should say, sense, imagination, and pure 
intellect. The will has, for its modifications, the inclina- 
tions and passions. Such is his general map of the country 
to be explored. 

He speaks next of the nature of error. It consists of 
false judgment, of which the cause is the will ; the occa- 
sion, the understanding ; and the prime reason, the fall 
of man. The remedy accordingly is, not to yield assent, 
except to propositions so evidently true that we cannot 
reasonably do otherwise ; and also careful abstinence, peni- 
tence, self-denial as to pleasures of sense. 

He specifies as errors of sense, our mistaking certain sen- 
sations as those of color, savor, etc., for qualities of bodies, 
whereas they are only impressions or sensations of our own , 
whence he concludes it may be so with our notions of figure 
and motion, since there is no necessary connection between 
the idea in the mind and the existence of the thing repre- 
sented by that idea. The reason why men do not at once 
perceive that those are mere modifications of the soul, is 



264 MALEBRAKCHE. 

that they have not a clear idea of the soul. There are sev- 
eral things to be distinguished in sensation : 1, action of 
external objects on the body ; 2, passion of the organ affect- 
ed ; 3, passion of the soul consequent on that of the organ ; 
4, judgment that what the soul perceives is out of itself and 
in the organ. It is because of not distinguishing these 
several things, that we fall into so many errors as to sen- 
sible qualities. 

Next, as to errors of imagination. He defines imagina- 
tion to be, at bottom, only a feeble and languishing sensa- 
tion ; with this difference, however — sensation acts from 
without inward, imagination from within outward — to 
produce the excitement of the nerves. " Imagination is that 
power which the soul has of forming images of objects, by 
producing a change in the fibres of that part of the brain 
which may be called the principal ; and to imagine is to 
judge that the thing thus imaged or imagined is not witli- 
in but without ; or that the object which is in view is an 
absent object." The cause of the nervous excitement 
aforesaid is the flow of animal spirits. 

The errors of the imagination consist in bestowing on 
the imagined objects a reality and a place in time and space, 
which do not belong to them. Men of study and erudi- 
tion, he says, are peculiarly liable to errors of the imagina- 
tion. They are liable to confound novelty with error, to 
think that all new things are false, and to mistake antiquity 
for truth, as if all ancient things were true things. They 
are liable also to the opposite error — a passion for novelty, 
a desire to be inventors of new systems ; flattering them- 
selves that in saying what has never been said, they shall not 
luant admirers. 

The author in the next book treats of errors of the 
understanding. The mind, or pure intellect, has for its 
essence, thought ; and for the character of that essence, limi- 
tation. It is a thought limited. Whence follows a two- 
fold consequence. 1. It cannot perfectly know the infi- 



MALEBLANCHE. 265 

nite. 2. It cannot even know many things at once. If, 
not aware of this, mistaking its own capacity and sphere 
it thinks to comprehend the infinite, or to embrace that 
which surpasses it, it falls into error and confusion. 

In this connection he takes occasion to define and 
describe what he calls ideas. ''I believe," he says, " all 
the world agrees that we perceive not external objects in 
themselves. We see the snn, the stars, and a great variety 
of objects without us, and it is not to be supposed that the 
soul leaves the body and goes, so to speak, promenading 
through the skies to contemplate there all these objects. 
It sees them not in and by themselves, and the immediate 
object of our mind, when it sees the sun, for example, is 
not the sun itself, but something which is intimately 
united to our soul ; and it is this which I call idea. So by 
idea I understand here nothing else than that which is the 
immediate object, or the nearest thing to the mind when it 
perceives some object, that is to say, that which touches 
and modifies the mind in the perception which it has of 
an object." 

"Whence come these ideas ? From the mind itself, by 
its own power ? Or, if not by its own power, at least by 
virtue of its qualities, which are likewise the very qualities 
of things, and which to see in it, will be to see the things 
themselves ? Or come they from objects, as species, which 
detach themselves, and reach the mind through the 
channel of sense ? Are they produced in the mind by 
Deity, in the beginning, and once for all ; or else each time 
that it thinks of the objects ? Or, finally, united to a being 
all perfect and containing in himself all intelligible per- 
fections, the models of all beings, are they simply mani- 
fest and present to the mind as the representation in God, 
of all that which it is possible to know ? The last supposi- 
tion, he concludes to be the true solution of the problem ; 
and for these reasons : It is necessary to conclude that 
God has in his own mind these ideas of all existences ; else 
12 



266 MALEBRAKCHE. 

he could not create those existences. But God is iati- 
mately united to our spirits by his presence. He is the 
place of spirits, just as, in one sense, space is the place of 
bodies. Hence the possibility of seeing in God all the 
works of God, proAdded he chooses to discover them to us. 
He does choose to do so, and for these reasons : 1. He 
does all things in the simplest possible manner, and the 
simplest way in this case is to make us see in him all things 
by means of the ideas which represent them. 2. Because 
this places created minds in entire dependence on his power. 

The conclusion is that we see, in fact, nothing but God, 
or that which is in God, and that, if we saw not God in 
some way we should not see anything. He is the intelli- 
gible world, or the place of spirits, just as the material world 
is the place of bodies ; it is from his power that they re- 
ceive all their modifications, and in his wisdom that they 
find all their ideas ; and as his power and his wisdom 
are only himself, we believe with Saint Paul that he is not 
far from every one of us, and that in him we live and move 
and have our being. Such is the celebrated theory of 
vision in God. It is a sufficient spell with which to dissolve 
and sweep away this magnificent cloud palace of the fancy, 
to deny that there is any such thing as an idea, in the sense 
now given ; that our ideas are in fact anything but modifi- 
cations of our own minds ; that they represent objects at all, 
in fact. Our choice is between this and that thoroughgoing 
idealism which resolves all things into God, with Spinoza 
and Malebranche, or into nothing, with Hume and Hegel. 

Malebranche next discusses the iyiclinations, or, as he 
calls them, the natural movements of the mind. These 
are to mind what motion is to material things — imparting 
variety and life. These inclinations are only continual 
impressions of God on us, and correspond of course to the 
ends which he has in view in all his actions. These ends 
are : first, himself ; secondly, the preservation and care of his 
creatures. To these ends our inclinations also relate ; and 



MALEBKAKCHE. 367 

thus deduced, we have first, tlie love of good iu general, or 
of Grod ; whence spring two other inclinations : the loye of 
self, and the love of others. The love of self, again, is 
twofold : the love of being or of greatness, i. e., virtue, 
knowledge, wealth, honor, reputation ; and then the love 
of 7veU-hemg, or pleasure. The latter is a good, notwith- 
standing the stoical views to the contrary ; at leasfc 
partakes of the character of a good. All these, however, 
are frequent sources of error to the human mind, as he 
proceeds to show, l^ext he treats of the passions and 
errors thence arising. Passions differ from inclinations in 
this, he holds : the latter to the soul as their object, the 
former to the body. Passions are impressions of G-od on 
us, which dispose us- to love our body and seek its welfare. 
Inclinations are impressions leading to the love, not of 
body but of soul, as God, ourselves, our neighbors, etc.. 

In all our passions there is a certain judgment of the 
relation of objects to us, accompanied with a certain move- 
ment of soul corresponding thereto, as joy, sadness, desire. 
He notices particularly, in this connection, the characteristic 
feature of all our passions, viz., a certain satisfaction which 
we take in being thus affected : the consent of the mind to, 
and its delight in being thus affected, even when the 
passions are in themselves not of an agreeable nature. 
Even in the emotion of grief or of anger we take pleasure. 
The errors to which passion leads are next pointed out : 
all summed up in this general one — they lead not to our 
true good, but to that of the body merely ; but* the body is 
not us ; its good is not our true good — that is God only, 
and union with God, which is truth. 

In the last book, the author treats of method, and 
gives various rules and observations on right reasoning. 
He takes the ground that all the forces of nature are only 
the will of God in operation, and that what we call natural 
causes are not in fact true causes at all, but only, as he 
elsewhere expresses the same thing, occasional ones — causes 



268 MALEBKANCHE. 

only in name ; ** all that can be said is that they have the 
power to do what God does by means of them, or rather 
that they are for him only the occasions of producing 
effects in consequence of laws which he has made for the 
sake of executing his designs in a uniform and constant 
manner." ^^ There is no relation of causality between a 
body and a mind, much less between a mind and a body ; 
there is none indeed between one body and another, or 
one mind and another. Neither body nor mind, then, are 
causes of anything — they are only the occasions. Every- 
thing which happens must have a cause, however. What 
can it be but G-od ? '' * (This is the very root and substance 
of the school of modern theology, named from Emmons). 

Such is the outline and general contents of this cele- 
brated treatise, which contains, perhaps, the fullest devel- 
opment of the philosophy of Malebranche. 

It will not be necessary, after this somewhat full analysis, 
to go with any minuteness into the examination of other 
works of the author. Sufficient to say that, as regards moral 
philosophy, in common with all Cartesians, he makes the 
will synonymous with desire or love ; to will is to love, and 
even liberty itself is but a form of love. His treatise on 
ethics consists of two parts : the one treats of virtue, the 
other of duty. Virtue is the love of order. There is but 
one order, and so but one virtue, or love of order. Order 
is the relation of ideas among themselves, and as God is the 
seat and substance of ideas and their relation, the love of 
order is the love of God, and of those whom God would 
have us love, i. e., our fellow-men. But this love must be 
free, dominant, habitual. Virtue is thus at once science 
and obedience. 

He accounts for the existence of evil in the universe 
as follows : '* God desires positively the perfection of his 
work, and wishes only indirectly the imperfection that pre- 

*■ These extracts are from another work, the " Christian Medita- 
tions," but the sanae views aremaintained in the " Inquiry after Truth." 



MALEBRANCHE. 269 

sents itself ; lie does the good and permits the evil, because 
it is for the sake of the good that he has established natural 
laws, and it is, on the contrary, only in consequence of these 
natural laws that evil comes. He does the good, because 
he wishes his work should be perfect ; he does the evil, not 
because positively and directly he wishes to do it, but 
because he wishes that his manner of acting should be 
simple and regular ; ' ' closely resembling the modern theory 
of evil as incidental to the best possible system ; indeed is 
it not, substantially, the very same theory ? ^' Malebranche," 
says Mackintosh, '' is perhaps the first philosopher who has 
precisely laid down, and rigidly adhered to the great prin- 
ciple, that virtue consists in pure intentions and dispositions 
of mind, without which, actions, however conformable to 
rules, are not truly moral ; a truth of the highest impor- 
tance, which, in the theological form, may be said to have 
been the main principle of the first Protestant reformers. 
The ground of piety, according to him, is the conformity 
of the attributes of Grod to those moral qualities which we 
irresistibly love and reverence. " Sovereign princes," says 
he, ^^ have no right to use their authority without reason. 
Even God has no such miserable right " (Hist. Eth. Phil, 
p. 128). This of course presupposes the existence of moral 
distinctions, and makes those distinctions, in fact, inde- 
pendent of Deity. We are bound to love God, because his 
character conforms to such and such moral qualities of 
which we form a conception, and which we adniire. Were 
he otherwise, we were not bound to love him. There are 
such things as right and justice and goodness, and there 
are ideas of them in our minds. God conforms to these 
ideas, possesses those attributes, therefore we are bound to 
love him. 

Such, in brief, the system of Malebranche. How much 
to choose between it and Spinoza's, as a system ? Not much, 
as Cousin says. By the doctrine of occasional causes, Male- 
branche takes away the efficacy of the human will, and 



270 LEIBKITZ. 

destroys human liberty and personality ; while by his theory 
of ideas and vision in God, he destroys all e\4dence of the 
existence, all possibility of the independent reality of exter- 
nal things ; thus both the soul and the mind are absorbed 
in God. What is this but the pantheism and absolute unity 
of Spinoza ? 



CHAPTER VL 

LEIBIi^^ITZ. 

Ok the third of July, 1646, was born at Leipsic one of 
the most remarkable men of the seventeenth century — one 
of those great minds that seem destined by Providence to 
take in at one glance all that has been previously made 
known to man, to comprehend within the limits of one little 
life the collective wisdom of past centuries, and not con- 
tent with tliat, having quickly reached the bound and 
farthest limit of human wisdom yet attained, to overleap 
that line and push onward into regions hitherto unexplored 
and dwell among yet undiscovered truths. Such minds 
there are, one or two such in a century perhaps ; two such, 
at least, in the century named — Newton was one, such 
another was Newton's great rival and contemporary, Leib- 
nitz. Of the two, Newton's was perhaps the stronger 
mind, Leibnitz's the more active and ready. Newton was 
the more cool, cautious, patient thinker. Leibnitz the 
more ardent explorer, the more general, comprehensive 
scholar, the greater genius ; Newton adhered more closely 
to the one pursuit in which he was destined to make the 
most brilliant discoveries. Leibnitz, conscious of no special 
superiority in any one department of science, and confined 
to no one either by nature or choice, ranged at will the 
whole field of human knowledge, gathered rare flowers 
wherever he wandered, and enriched with new discoveries 



LEIBNITZ. 271 

whatever region he explored. Like Newton master of 
mathematical science, and like him far in advance of all 
other men in it, unlike him he was master also of law and 
jurisprudence, as far outstripping the ablest proficients in 
these sciences as he outstripped the ablest mathematicians 
of Europe ; unlike him he gave himself also to history, and 
enriched that science with some of the most profound and 
erudite treatises of which that age could boast ; unlike 
him he was master also of philosophy in the true sense of 
that term, and created an era in the philosophical specu- 
lations of more than one country in Europe. Nor was he 
less a theologian than a philosopher, and in whatever 
department of human knowledge we follow him, whether 
as mathematician, jurist, historian, philosojjher, or theo- 
logian, we find him in each and all proficient, a master, 
enlarging the borders and widening the fields of whatever 
science he investigates ; so that of him it luay with truth 
be said, whatever he touched he adorned. Nor was Europe 
unaware of his greatness — or ungrateful for his services. 
He was loaded with honors and rewards, pensions and 
decorations. Foreign courts and princes vied with each 
other to do him homage. In the earlier part of his liter- 
ary career, while yet not so widely known to fame, he 
attracted the notice of Baron Yon Boineburg — ^by whom he 
was recommended to the Elector of Mayence, and by 
whose favor he was appointed Electoral Counsellor and 
Chancellor of Justice. Afterward he found a friend and 
patron in the Duke of Brunswick, who bestowed on him a 
pension, with leave of foreign residence. After the death 
of that nobleman, he was appointed historiographer to the 
family and spent some years in collecting materials abroad, 
for that work. The Elector of Brandenburg, afterward 
Frederick I. of Prussia, seeks his advice and aid in estab- 
lishing the Eoyal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and 
appoints him its first president. From the Emperor 
Charles VI. he receives the dignities of Aulic Counsellor 



272 



LEIBKITZ. 



and of Baron, with, a pension of 2,000 florins. Even the 
Czar Peter of Eussia avails himself of the advice of so 
wise a man respecting the improvement of his vast empire, 
and in return confers on him a pension of 1,000 roubles. 
Evidently then, we are not to think of this Leibnitz as one 
of those retired and quiet men who in obscurity and pov- 
erty work out, unknown to fame while living and honored 
only when dead, the great problems of philosophy. He 
stands in a very different relation to the men and events of 
this busy world. Seldom indeed has man of letters and 
science been more honored or more widely known while living 
than Leibnitz. The reason of the phenomenon is, lie was 
a man of universal genius, of varied and vast attainments — 
a speculator and philosopher, but not a speculative philos- 
opher merely; a thinker and theorist, but not a theorist mere- 
ly ; not an impracticable man, but a man in contact with 
other men, with the age — a man whose attainments, vast as 
they were, were all available and of use to mankind, of use 
in action and for the present time, and therefore nations 
and kings gladly availed themselves of his labors. 

In reading, Leibnitz devoured everything — nothing 
came amiss, nothing escaped him. His mental activity was 
almost without a parallel. He spent days and nights in 
succession in the most severe mental exertions, interrupted 
with only now and then an hour or two of sleep, which 
he frequently took in his chair. Nor was his memory 
inferior to his mental activity. What he once fairly grasped 
was thenceforth Ms, and forever his. Time rolled its suc- 
cessive waves upon the firm shore of that tenacious mind, 
not as with other men to weaken and wash out little by 
little the acquisitions of former years, but rather to deepen 
and consolidate the impression already made upon it. In 
his old age we hear him, in the intervals of toil, repeating 
whole books of Virgil. His career as an author commenced 
in early life, and continued till the late evening of his 
days. He had already published a mathematical treatise, 



L E I B ]N- I T Z. 273 

a dissertation on philosopliy, and several legal treatises, at 
the age of twenty. At sixty-four lie gives to the world his 
celebrated work on theology. Five years after, at the age 
of sixty-nine, he publishes his essay on the Human Under- 
standing. These last were the fruits of his latest and most 
mature thoughts. He dies the year following (November 
14, 1716), at the age of seventy. A life of such severe and 
continued mental labor, embracing fifty years of active 
authorship, is quite unusual, and constitutes not the least 
remarkable feature in the history of this rare man. In 
his habits he was frugal and temperate ; in appearance a 
thin, spare man, of medium height, with an habitual stoop 
of the shoulders, of firm health, of pleasing countenance 
and animated, lively manner of address, simple and easy 
in his manners. His hair, in early life black, was soon 
turned white by toil, but his eyes continued strong and 
capable of service to the last. His style of living was 
simple in the extreme, and his enemies charged him with 
avarice. Of his domestic affairs he was totally negligent, 
and was never married. His monument — in form a G-re- 
cian temple — ^bears the simple inscription, Ossa Leilnitii. 

Such was the man — what now his philosophy ? A fol- 
lower in general, as you know, of Descartes, yet not a 
blind follower of any system or any master. A Cartesian 
in the main, and as regards the school in which he received 
his training and first impulse ; a Cartesian as to his 
general principles ; yet it were hard to say, so fully did he 
breathe his own spirit into that system and so widely 
modify it, whether he were more indebted to Cartesianism 
or Cartesianism to him. Withal, unlike the founder of 
that system, he was almost as much a Platonist as Car- 
tesian. Of Grecian philosophy, and specially of the wisdom 
of Plato, he drank early and copious draughts, nor did his 
study and his admiration of that philosophy fall off as 
he advanced in years. He was a Cartesian, yet he pos- 
sessed one advantage which Descartes did not — that of 
12» 



274 LEIBKITZ. 

coming after Descartes, of coming forward at a period when 
the system of that great master had attained its develop- 
ment, and had produced its legitimate fruits ; when its 
ultimate tendencies, as shown in Spinoza and Malebranche, 
were obvious ; when its renowned antagonists, and especially 
Locke, were vigorously assailing it in its weakest points 
and striving to build the edifice of speculative truth on 
another foundation. Hence we are not surprised to learn that 
a mind so sagacious and comprehensive as Leibnitz received 
the system of Descartes only with essential modification, and 
remodelled after the designs of his own creative genius. 

We have no systematic development of the philosophy 
of Leibnitz — no complete exposition of his system ; yet 
in his occasional treatises lie the germs of much of the 
future philosophy of Germany and indeed of Europe and 
the age. ^^The mind of Leibnitz," says Morell, "was cast 
in a gigantic mould, and formed by nature to tower above 
the rest of the world around him. By virtue of this it was, 
that like all great minds he cast his shadow before him, 
and gave more pregnant suggestions in some of his cursory 
writings than most other men could do in the combined 
and systematic labor of their whole life." 

At the basis of the Leibnitzian philosophy, we find this 
general fundamental principle : that, in philosophy, as in 
other sciences, there are certain grand first truths, neces- 
sary truths, not to be learned from experience, but grounded 
in the soul itself, and resting on principles and proofs quite 
independent of the testimony of sense. Upon this founda- 
tion rests whatever is peculiar to his system. Herein of 
course lies the fundamental difference between him and 
Locke. There is nothing in the understanding which was 
not first in the sense, says Locke. Nothing hut the under- 
standing itself, says Leibnitz, the very power and faculty 
of forming ideas ; this surely is not derived from sense and 
experience, this, at least, though not ideas themselves, 
must be innate, and thence spring those necessary truths, 



LEIBKITZ. 275 

those laws of the understanding, that are the primary 
sources and elements of human knowledge. 

Hence he stands midway between Locke and Descartes, 
rejecting the innate ideas of the latter, and rejecting also 
the sensational oi^igin of all our ideas as maintained by the 
former. This is the ground subsequently maintained and 
systematically defended by Kant and his followers in 
Germany, by Cousin and the eclectic idealists in France, 
and now yery generally regarded as the true ground with 
respect to the origin of our knowledge; viz., tliat, while 
much of our knowledge is doubtless derived from sense, 
while ideas are not, strictly speaking, innate, nevertheless 
there are certain necessary first truths, or laws of thought 
and of the human mind, not derived from experience, but 
bedded in the framework of the soul itself, integral in its 
nature and constitution, needing only the occasion afforded 
by sense, needing only opportunity and circumstance, to call 
them forth and to develop them in the consciousness. 
Such are the ideas of time and space, e. g., as shown by 
Cousin. Such are also, in fact, the first principles, or 
necessary truths, of Keid and Stuart. 

All philosophical truth, Leibnitz maintained, must be 
deduced by analysis from the primary truths involved in 
these necessary laws of the human understanding. The ideas 
derived from the senses cannot serve as the starting point 
and basis in such investigations, for the ideas thus derived 
are confused, indistinct, uncertain. In this he agrees with 
the old G-recian rationalists, the Eleatics, and also with Plato. 

But how are we to distinguish the true and primitive 
ideas from the false and sensuous ? What tests or criteria 
of truth ? Not the Cartesian one of clearness, for that is 
inadequate. Instead of that, Leibnitz proposes as criteria 
the two great principles on which, as he says, all our con- 
clusions rest : that of contradiction, by which, as Aristotle 
also held, we judge that to be false which involves con- 
tradictory statements ; and that of the sufficient reason. 



J^76 LEIBN"ITZ. 

which teaches that no assertion is true if no sufficient 
reason can be given why it is true. The former is a test 
of absolute and necessary truth, as, e. g., the mathematical 
conceptions, which, to be true, need only come within the 
range of possibilities. The latter principle is the test 
of actual or real truths relating to contingent existence. 
The absolute final cause or reason of all truth is God. 

In another respect, Leibnitz stands apart from the Car- 
tesian ranks. We have seen that it was the tendency of 
that school, in its exaltation of the infinite, the great first 
cause, to lose sight of all inferior and secondary causes — of 
all activity in nature — in fine, as seen in Spinoza and Male- 
branche, to resolve all things into Deity, and lose sight of 
nature itself in one great object of thought, of whose grand 
existence all phenomena were but modes. Leibnitz per- 
ceived this tendency and set himself to counteract it, to 
bring back to its true place in the system the idea of activ- 
ity in nature. " The capital error of the Cartesians," he 
says, "is that they have placed the whole essence of matter 
in extension and impenetrability, imagining that bodies 
can be in absolute repose ; we shall show that one sub- 
stance cannot receive from any other the power of acting, 
but that the whole force is preexistent in itself." This, 
as Morell justly remarks, is the key to all that is peculiar 
in the system of Leibnitz. 

In particular it explains, as it seems to me, the monad- 
ology of his system, so often ridiculed, so seldom under- 
stood. How shall we account for the phenomena of nature 
that are continually passing around us, inquires this close 
observer ; not by the principle of extension. That would 
give us matter without change or alteration, no movement, 
no development, such as we see constantly in nature. 
There must be some fundamental attribute of matter, giv- 
ing rise to all these changes — an inherent power in sub- 
stance itself ; how else can you account for the phenomena 
in question ? unless indeed you take the ground that they 



LEIB15ITZ, 277 

are immediately and directly produced by tlie diyine 
power. If there is, tlien, as it would seem, some inher- 
ent force, or activity, or power, in matter, where does it 
reside ? Not in compound substances or masses, for these 
are infinitely diyisible, and every essential attribute is 
independent of such combinations. Beneath these com- 
pound masses, some uncompound, simple substances must 
exist as the ground of the compound — exist though not 
recognized by sense. In the process of the infinite division 
of the composite mass, we reach eventually a point where 
every material property vanishes ; we get down to zero, 
the limit of extension, and there remains only the simple 
idea of power or force as the basis of all existence. This 
substance simple and uncompound, underlying all com- 
pound masses, this simple element of force, the basis of 
existence, is what Leibnitz terms monad. 

The monad being immaterial, unextended, indivisible, 
is subject of course to no external or foreign influence, 
and whatever changes take place in it, take place in con- 
sequence of an inlierent energy in the monad itself, by 
which it has the power to modify and develop itself. The 
monad is indissoluble, and therefore imperishable. Each, 
monad differs in its qualities from all others, for no two 
things are ever exactly alike. He specifies four distinct 
classes : 1, Those which compose material objects — not 
self-conscious, manifesting only physical qualities ; 2, Those 
which form the souls of leasts, having an indistinct con- 
sciousness ; 3, Those which compose the souls of men, 
having a clear and distinct consciousness ; and finally, 
4, God the original, absolute, eternal monad, the Monas 
Monadum, the origin of all knowledge and all being. All 
finite beings are aggregates of monads. Different monads 
have no direct influence on each other. But yet the 
internal changes of each monad are such as to agree with 
the corresponding changes in the monads with which it is 
immediately connected. This is effected by the Divine 



278 LEIBNITZ. 

wisdom and power in the first constitution of the several 
monads, and the arrangement by whicli this agreement 
is effected he denotes by the term preestablished harmony. 
He is led to this doctrine in this way. It was an old 
maxim of the philosophers that like only can act on like, 
i. e., that things wholly unlike in their nature can exert 
no reciprocal influence on each other. But the monads of 
body and those of mind are wholly unlike. Mind and 
matter, then, can have no influence on each other. How 
then do they have any union or co-action ? This is 
brought about by the divine power and skill in so constitut- 
ing and arranging them that they shall correspond and work 
together in complete unison. This harmony is preestab- 
lished — hence the term, all things are pre-f ormed, and from 
eternity. He who produces them perceives in them, as 
resulting from their nature, all their future movements. 
Hence the harmony of all things, of the past and the 
future, of the divine decree and human conduct. 

It is evident that from this system there proceeds, as by 
natural and inevitable consequence, the doctrine of philo- 
sophical necessity in all its purity and depth. The only 
kind of liberty consistent with this preestablished consti- 
tution and harmony of all things, is liberty to do that 
which actually is done — that, and nothing else. The only 
point remaining worthy of special notice, in the philos- 
ophy of Leibnitz is his celebrated doctrine of optimism, 
which is developed in his Theodicea, or treatise on theology. 
The object of this treatise more especially is, to defend 
the wisdom of the Creator against the charges brought 
against it on the score of the existence of evil in the uni- 
verse. The position assumed is, that of ?i[\possiUe worlds 
an infinite number of which are possible, God has actu- 
ally chosen the very best. Everything which is, however 
imperfect, in itself considered, is still, all things considered, 
and in its relation to all things, the very best possible. 
Hence the name, optimism, given to this doctrine and the 



LEIBKITZ. 279 

system framed upon it. According to this system the 
existence of evil is no argument against the supreme wis- 
dom and benevolence, for metaphysical evil — from which 
natural and moral evil, or suffering and sin, necessarily 
result — is only the necessary limitation, or imperfection, 
inherent in, and pertaining to the nature of things. Moral 
evil is based on the premise of human freedom, or the 
choice we have of one among many acts, all of which are 
physically possible. The future is indeed determined, and 
all the actions of men ; yet man is ignorant of that future 
and of that determination, and acts only according to 
reason and preference. From various causes he choses oft 
that which is ill — Whence moral evil, or sin ; yet in the end 
even this shall prove for the best as regards the whole, and 
every being, however imperfect, and every act and event, 
however evil in itself, shall contribute as a necessary part 
to the perfection of the whole. 

The close correspondence of this system with the theo- 
logical tenet, that sin is the necessary means of the 
greatest good, and also with the theology of a more infal- 
lible standard, which asserts that all things work together 
for good to them that love God, is too obvious , to require 
statement. 

The system of Leibnitz as now explained, was some- 
what modified subsequently by its most distinguished 
adherent and disciple. Christian "Wolf, about the begin- 
ning of the eighteenth century. He supplied what was 
previously wanting, a clear, connected, methodical form, 
modifying somewhat the doctrine of monads, drawing a 
broader line of distinction between matter and mind, and 
limiting the preestablished harmony to the mutual relations 
of soul and body, rather than to monads in general, and 
applying to the whole a strictly mathematical method, he 
first gave the whole system a complete scientific form. 

The whole province of philosophy with him consists of 
two parts, theoretical and practical. The former comprises 



280 



H B B E S. 



logic proper, and metaphysics, which latter inchides ontology, 
psychology, cosmology, and natural theology. Practical 
philosophy comprises ethics, the law of nature, and politics. 
Thus improved, the system found its way into most of the 
universities of Europe and held sway predominant for the 
first half of the eighteenth century. 



CHAPTER VII. 



HOBBES. 

The manifest tendency of the Baconian doctrines was 
to give undue prominence to natural philosophy and to 
physical science generally, greatly at the expense of mental 
and moral philosophy, which, whether by design or not, yet 
in fact and almost inevitably, were thrown into the back- 
ground. Nothing in human knowledge was held of much 
importance or considered as fully reliable which was not 
based on processes and investigations purely experimental. 

The empirical element preponderated over every other, 
and the ultimate tendency and final result was of course de- 
cidedly in the direction of a wide-sweeping and thorough sen- 
sationalism. The practical lesson learned by the wisdom of 
the age from this master teacher was to fall back ultimately, 
and as the only safe method, upon the testimony and experi- 
ence of the senses as the main if not the only sound and sure 
basis of knowledge. The master left the age and his disciples 
little more than a new and a true method. It was for them to 
apply it and discover results. Many arose to do this in the de- 
partment of natural and physical research. One man alone, a 
warm admirer of the Baconian doctrines, appeared, to apply 
the empirical method to the investigation of mental and moral 
science. This man was Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher 
of Malmesbury, one of the most distinguished writers of the 
seventeenth century. He was born April 5, 1588, in the 



HOBBES. 281 

borongh of Malmesbury. After studying at Oxford, and 
making the tour of France and Italy in company with the 
son of Lord Hardwicke, he spent seyeral years in the family 
of that nobleman as secretary. Here he formed the acquaint- 
ance of Lord Bacon, Lord Herbert, and Ben Jonson, and 
subsequently at Paris and Pisa, during a tour to the conti- 
nent, he became acquainted with Gassendi and Galileo. 
Eeturning to England he fixed his residence at Ohatsworth. 
The prospect of political troubles soon drove him to Paris, 
where he resided during the wars of the revolution, and 
where he published most of his works. He was employed 
to teach Prince Charles (Charles XL) the elements of math- 
ematical science. Eeturning to England he was kindly 
received by the Devonshire family, with whom he passed 
the remainder of his life, employed mostly in writing upon 
philosophical and political subjects. A treatise, in 1650, on 
Human Nature, and another, in 1658, on Man, in which he 
treats of the moral and intellectual faculties, are his princi- 
pal philosophical writings. But the work on which his fame 
chiefly rests is the Leviathan, 1651, in which he treats of 
the matter, form, and power of a commonwealth, ecclesias- 
tical and civil, which work greatly alarmed the ecclesiastics, 
and excited no little ferment in England. It was severely 
censured in Parliament sixteen years after its publication ; 
so great was the disapprobation with which it was gener- 
ally regarded. 

His other literary labors were a translation of the Iliad 
and Odyssey, which passed through three editions in ten 
years, and a History of the Civil Wars, which did not appear 
till after his death. After the restoration, Hobbes was 
received with favor by the King, who gave him a pension 
of 100 pounds per annum from his privy purse. He 
died, December 4, 1679, at Hardwicke, a seat of the Earl 
of Devonshire, at the age of 91.* 

* See amusing account of his personal habits, esi>ecially Ms smok- 
ing — Sydney Smith's Sketches of Moral Philosophy, pp. 365-366. 



282 H O B B E S. 

Perhaps no writer, unless it be Spinoza, has been more 
generally caluminated than the philosopher of Malmesbury. 
By some he is regarded as a dangerous man ; by others as 
a shallow and superficial man. His influence has never 
been great, owing to the fear which has been entertained 
of his doctrines. Yet that very fear is a tribute to his 
strength, and proclaims him anything but a weak and 
shallow writer. "Impartial minds," says Lewes, "will 
always rank Hobbes among the greatest writers England 
has produced ; and by writers we do not simply mean 
masters of language but masters of thought. He is pro- 
found and he is clear, weighty, and sparkling. His style, as 
mere style, is in its way as fine as anything in English ; it 
has the clearness as well as the solidity and brilliancy of 
crystal " (Hist. Phil. ii. 495). 

He is, in a word, one of those cool, collected, resolute 
thinkers, who in their search after truth are startled by no 
consequences, turned back by no results, but keep on in 
close pursuit of the game with all the tenacity and persever- 
ance of the hound upon the track of the stately deer. The 
world at large is too lazy to keep up with such runners, too 
timid to follow at such a rate, a leisurely walk or jog- 
trot is the most it can venture, and it must be a tame and 
slow-footed animal that shall allow itself to be fairly over- 
taken in such a race. 

We by no means intend by this, however, to approve 
the recklessness of such a writer as Hobbes, or to vindicate 
his conclusions. 

The main features of his philosophy may be thus 
sketched. Bacon had relied upon experience as the main 
source of knowledge. Upon this ground Hobbes takes his 
stand, and so develops the principle as to make sensation 
the real basis of all knowledsre and all thou oh t. Hence 
the material tendency of his philosophy. By sensation 
we perceive only what is material y and as sensation is the 
source of all our knowledge, hence matter is the only 



H B B E S. 283 

reality, and what we perceive or think, we perceive as 
existing — what exists to us — is part of the material universe. 
Our sensation is the standard and criterion of all truth 
and reality. We have then to do simply with bodies in our 
search after the truth ; we can know nothing else. This is 
the substance of philosophy, its aim and province, to teach 
the doctrine and phenomena of bodies, regarded as to their 
existence and their changes. Under the term bodies, how- 
ever, he includes mind or soul. He divides all bodies into 
natural and political ; including under the former the physi- 
cal and mathematical sciences, psychology, logic, etc. Oar 
ideas or thoughts, he holds to be each a ^' representation or 
appearance of some quality or other accident of a body 
without us, which is commonly called an object, which 
object worketh on the eyes, ears, and other parts of a man's 
body, and by diversity of working produceth diversity of 
appearances. The original of them all is that which we 
call sense. For there is no conception in a man's mind, 
which hath not at first totally lor by parts been begotten 
upon the organs of sense. The rest are derived from 
that original." 

According to this view of things, the mind seems to be 
wholly natural in its nature ; and the phenomena of con- 
sciousness are the natural and immediate result of our 
physical organization. " All the qualities called sensible," 
he says, " are in the object that causeth them but so many 
several motions of the matter by which it presseth on our 
organs diversely. Neither in us that are pressed are they any 
else but diverse motions. Every operation of the mind is 
but a transformed sensation, and sensation itself is simply 
the effect of material objects around us pressing on the 
organs of sense and on that material organization within, 
viz., the mind. 

Hobbes divides the faculties of the mind into two 
classes ; cognitive, imaginative, or conceptive ; and motive. 
There are in our minds continually, " certain images or 



284 H B B E S. 

conceptions of the things without." Wo call this imagery 
or representation " our conception, imagination, ideas/' 
of the external things. The faculty or power by which 
we can form this conception or knowledge, is what he 
means by the conception or conceptive faculty. 

While sense, however, furnishes our conceptions, those 
conceptions, or sensations, do not correspond to any exter- 
nal qualities of bodies ; on the contrary, the sensible quali- 
ties of bodies are but modifications of our own sentient 
being. This was also the doctrine of Descartes. 

The imagination, according to Hobbes, is the result of the 
gradual ceasing of that motion or movement, by which sensa- 
tion is produced ; in consequence of which diminished move- 
ment the impression becomes fainter and fainter. " Imagi- 
nation, therefore, is nothing but decaying sense." By imagi- 
nation he means simply the faculty of forming images — the 
primitive sense of the term. He likens this decaying sense 
to the gradual going down of the waves after a storm. The 
cause of this decay or diminution of the sensible impression, 
is not the absolute decay of the motion made in sense, 
but the impulse of some succeeding and stronger motion, by 
which the former is obscured, as the stars go out in appear- 
ance, when the sun rises. Memory and imagination are the 
same things essentially under different names ; memory 
denoting, not the thing itself, the decaying sense which he 
turns imagination, but rather the character of it, as some- 
thing fading and past. 

Hobbes gets a glimpse, though indistinct, of the great 
law of association of ideas : " When a man thinketh on any 
subject, his next thought is not altogether so casual as it 
seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds 
indifferently." The reason why one follows another he 
says is this : All our ideas or images are motio7is in us, 
relics of those made in sense, and the motions that followed 
each other in sense follow each other in imagination or 
thought also, so that when the former come again to mind 



H B B E S. 285 

or occur, the latter follow them, just as water upon a 
plain table is drawn which way any one part of it is 
guided by the finger." This train or succession of thoughts 
he divides into two sorts : that which is spontaneous, un- 
guided, as in men untrained to reflection ; and that which 
is the result of, or modified by our voluntary effort. 

We cannot imagine the infinite, says Hobbes, cannot 
conceive it ; can imagine or conceive only what is within 
the sphere of sense. Of the infinite we can form an idea 
only hj faith. 

Language is, with Hobbes, a very important thing. 
Without it society would have been impossible, and the 
simplest mathematical truths indiscoverable. Our original 
knowledge is from sensation, but we use words to denote 
the things thus known, and these words we form into pro- 
positions. Understanding is the faculty that perceives the 
relation between words and things, and affords us thus 
another and secondary sort of knowledge. Truth and false- 
hood are only the agreement or disagreement of words 
among themselves. 

Eeasoning is merely a numerical calculation, involving 
and consisting in the processes of addition and subtraction, 
words being the figures used. Error in reasoning arises 
only from using the wrong words or figures, or a want of 
proper definition of terms. 

The etMcs of Hobbes correspond to his psychology. 
As thought is only transformed sensation, so good and evil 
are only other expressions for pleasure and pain. ISTothing 
is in itself either good or evil simply and absolutely, but 
only as they affect us. Our duties practically, then, are 
simply to avoid the disagreeable, and seek the pleasurable, 
and as we cannot be otherwise affected than we are by the 
agreeable and the disagreeable, our volitions or desires 
are consequently determined by motives external, so that 
we are creatures of irresistible necessity. The active 
powers and faculties of the soul are simply our desires or 



iiSG H B B E S. 

wants. The will is the ultimate or final desire. The end 
of all our desires and wants is pleasure. This is, then, the 
true destiny of man, his law of action, the chief of all his 
rights and all his duties. 

From this results his theory of civil polity. As good 
and evil are simply pleasure and pain, and nature teaches 
to desire the one and shun the other, man is by nature 
inclined, and instructed, to do whatever will secure and 
promote the greatest degree of personal enjoyment, irre- 
spective of his fellow men. Whatever tends to this is 
reasonable and lawful. Eight is the liberty of employing 
our natural powers agreeably to reason, and reason teaches 
to do whatever can be done to promote our own enjoyment. 
In other words, might makes right. But this would bring 
man constantly into collision with his fellows — for they are 
all equal ; have equally the same law of self-preservation 
and self -enjoyment. Hence war is the natural state of 
man, each against his fellow. This, however, is found to be 
not for the highest welfare of all concerned. It is the end 
of repose and security and tranquil enjoyment. Self-de- 
fence is continually necessary against the encroachments 
of the more powerful. Hence to secure the highest attain- 
able good, men league together for mutual defence and 
security — and so originates the civil compact, in which the 
individual merges some private rights in the public organi- 
zation, and resigns part of his natural power or right into 
the hands of others. Thus begins society as organized — 
the state ; the tribe ; the city — in a word, governmenL 
It would follow from this, that if any one is powerful 
enough he may do what he likes, and it is all right. 

Cousin very well objects ("hat all force claims pretence 
oi justice and piety. But why so if mere force is of itself 
sufficient to justify ? He farther argues against this 
scheme that whatever may have been the primitive state of 
man we are not of necessity to take that as the criterion 
and standard of judgment in such cases. A state of bar- 



H B B E S. 287 

barism may have been the primitive state of man, and out 
of this may have sprung the leginning of human govern- 
ment. But it is not therefore the true foundation and 7'ea- 
son and basis on which law and society are built, nor the 
standard by which we are to measure them. 

As the design of human government, according to 
Hobbes, is to keep in check the lawless and aggressive de- 
sires of the individual, otherwise destructive of the interests 
of his fellows, so that government is the best, answers best 
the end of government, which keeps man most completely 
in check — in other words, which is strongest. Such is an 
absolute monarchy, — the perfection of all government j and 
law, morals, and religion ought to be subject to its undis- 
puted and irresistible sway. 

We can hardly wonder that such a system met with 
strong opposition and awakened no inconsiderable alarm. 
Mr. Hallam thus sums up his estimate of the philosophy 
now detailed : ^^ The political system of Hobbes, like his 
moral system, of which in fact it is only a portion, sears 
up the heart. It takes away the sense of wrong that has 
consoled the wise and good in their dangers, the proud 
appejil of innocence under oppression, like that of Prome- 
theus to the elements, uttered to the witnessing world, to 
coming ages, to the just ears of heaven. It confounds the 
principles of moral approbation, the notions of good nnd ill 
desert, in a servile idolatry of the monstrous Leviathan it 
creates, and after sacrificing all right at the altar of power, 
denies to the Omnipotent the prerogative of dictating the 
laws of his own worship " (Literatujo of Europe, vol. iii. p. 
176). Such is Hobbesism. Would Bacon have sanctioned 
it ? By no means. Yet, as Morell justly observes, the germ 
of it is in the Baconian philosophy. 



288 LOCKE. 



CHAPTER VIIL 

LOCKE. 

The opinions of Hobbes excited no little alarm in Eng- 
land and awoke no little controyersy. Some sought to 
oppose those doctrines in one way and some in another, 
but everywhere they were the object of attention and dis- 
cussion. The most distinguished opponents of that system 
were Lord Herbert, Richard Cumberland, bishop of Peter- 
borough, and Ralph Oudworth, the well known author of 
the ^' Intellectual System of the Universe," a true Platonist 
in philosophy. While this discussion and conflict were 
going on, a company of Oxford students met one day at 
the rooms of one John Locke, of the university. They 
discussed and wrangled, but to little purpose as regards 
the elucidation of truth, and the problems which they 
sought to solve. It occurred to one of them that that were 
pursuing a wrong method, and that, instead of analyzing 
things themselves, it were better to begin the search with 
investigating the mind itself, to know what it can and 
what it cannot comprehend. From that occurrence dates, 
the first idea and origin of a work which has awakened 
more thought, and received more attention probably, than 
any metaphysical treatise, since the days of Aristotle, viz., 
the "Essay on the Human Understanding." Its author 
was by no means, however, a mere metaphysican. He 
carried his philosophical genius and acumen into the 
science of government, political economy, and religion. 
His name and authority, as Cousin has well said, fill the 
eighteenth century. 

John Locke was born at Wrington, not far from 
Bristol, August 29, 1632. His father took part in the 
political disturbances of 1640, and served as captain in the 



LOCKE. 289 

Parliamentary army under Colonel Popham. To this 
officer young Locke was indebted for an introduction to 
the College of Westminster, at London, where he stayed 
till he was nineteen or twenty, and then went to Oxford. 
It is not improbable that these early family associations 
had something to do with that deyotion to civil and reli- 
gious liberty which breathes in all the writings and per- 
vaded the spirit of John Locke. Oxford was then, as 
now, attached to the past ; worshipped antiquity, gave 
itself to the scholastic philosophy ; had little sympathy 
with the age and the busy world. Locke, whose cast of 
mind was eminently practical, had little sympathy with 
that spirit and that philosophy, and consequently paid 
little attention to those studies that were chiefly in vogue 
there, but sought a more congenial pursuit in the study of 
medicine and the classics. Feeble health prevented him 
from the practice of medicine, nor, indeed did he ever 
take the title, yet he seems to have attained some distinc- 
tion in it as a science. The culture of this science, and of 
the kindred natural sciences, seems to have developed in 
him a habit and love of close observation, which were in 
truth the best foundation and training, for those still 
higher pursuits in which he was chiefly to distinguish 
himself. He continued at Oxford, it would seem, till 
1664, when he accompanied William Swan, as secretary, 
to the court of Berlin. Eeturning at the end of a year to 
Oxford, he met for the first time with one who was to 
exert an important influence on his future fortunes, 
Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury. This 
nobleman was in ill-health, and meeting with Locke as a 
medical adviser, discovered in him more than ordinary 
abilities, and formed a strong personal attachment to him. 
The skill of Locke detected the true nature of his disease, 
and aided him to regain health. The two remained firm 
friends ever after. Shaftesbury was not ungrateful. The 
fortunes of his friend were linked thenceforth with his own. 
13 



290 LOCKE. 

Nor is it a little to the credit of this ambitious and bril- 
liant man^ that in his subsequent political career he 
remained faithful to his earlier friendship, and that he 
continued not only to treat Locke with due regard, but 
that he held so high a place in the esteem and regard of so 
good and truth-loving a man as John Locke. It was 
Shaftesbury who first discovered the ability and worth of 
Locke, drew him forth from his retirement in Oxford, and 
introduced him to the brilliant circles of literary society in 
London — to such men as Lord Halifax, the Duke of Buck- 
ingham, the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Pem- 
broke, and others. In 1668, Locke was chosen a member 
of the Eoyal Society oi Sciences. When Shaftesbury be- 
came High Chancellor in 1672, he gave Locke an honor- 
able and important office, that of secretary of presentation 
to benefices. One year, however, sees them both out of 
office, both in again in 1679, only to see them out again 
shortly after. Shaftesbury is now banished from England, 
and dies in Holland, in 1683, whither his faithful friend 
had followed him. No man had done more than Shaftes- 
bury to bring back Charles II. to the throne, yet he in- 
curred the displeasure of that fickle and ungrateful 
monarch, and so fully did Locke share that displeasure, 
that in his retreat in Holland, Charles cuts him off from 
the list of members of Oxford, and even demands his 
person as implicated in the Monmouth conspiracy. It was 
only through the kindness of friends that Locke escaped 
being given up as a malefactor. It was in Holland that 
he wrote his first philosophical treatises and finished his 
greatest work — the Essay on the Human Understanding, 
although it was not published till after his return to Eng- 
land. The revolution of 1688, which brought in a differ- 
ent dynasty, enabled Locke to return to London, where 
he was received with every mark of favor. William gave 
him his confidence, and in turn Locke wrote much and 
did much to strengthen the hands of the governing power. 



LOCKE. 291 

He was appointed to a responsible and lucrative office, but 
was obliged by failing health to resign. He retired to 
private life and seclusion, passed his remaining years in 
peaceful retirement in Gates, at the house of his friend 
Lady Masham, daughter of Dr. Oudworth, where he died, 
October 28, 1704, aged 72. 

In private life and personal character Locke was justly 
esteemed by all as a man of accomplished manners, strict 
and unbending integrity, a faithful friend, an upright and 
amiable man. As an author his fame is coextensive with 
the English language. No writer on philosophical sub- 
jects has probably exerted so wide and lasting an influence 
on the thinking mind, not of England only but of all 
Europe. His name is justly regarded as one of the 
brightest ornaments of English literature and science, and 
of the seventeenth century. His system has been severely 
assailed ; it has become fashionable within the present 
century to speak lightly and with disparagement of his 
philosophy ; his influence is by no means what it once 
was ; but it will be long ere those who know anything of 
the history of philosophy, or have any respect for the opin- 
ions and great minds of the past, will pronounce with other 
than profound respect the name of John Locke. 

The plan of the Essay on the Human Understanding 
seems to have been conceived as early as 1670, but it was 
not until his exile in Holland that he found leisure to write 
out and complete the work, and it was not published until 
1690, after his return. It was written consequently, not 
in consecutive efforts, but, as he says, *' by incoherent 
parcels, and after long intervals of neglect resumed again as 
my humor or occasions permitted, and at last in retirement 
where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was 
brought into that order thou now seest it." He further 
informs us that when he first put pen to paper, he thought 
all he should have to say on this subject would have been 
contained in one sheet, but that the further he went the 



292 



LOCKE. 



larger prospect he had, new discoveries still leading him 
on till his work '* grew insensibly to the bulk it now 
appears in" (Epistle to the Reader. Essay, vol. i. p. 23). 
This fact will account, perhaps, for the somewhat discon- 
nected character of the several parts of the work ; for some 
inconsistencies which appear in it ; for the variation in the 
use of terms and the different significations with which 
the same terms are variously employed in different parts 
of the treatise. He not only wrote at different times, but 
his views doubtless changed in many respects as he went 
on. He learned as he wrote. His system did not lie com- 
plete in his mind's eye when he first began. Hence he is 
far from precision and unvarying exactness in the use of 
terms or even complete consistency. Stewart conjectures 
with some reason that the fourth and last book was 
the first in order of composition, as it contains the leading 
thoughts of the work, as they first presented themselves 
probably to the author's mind when he began to reflect on 
the subject, while it refers but seldom to the preceding 
parts of the Essay. The third book, on language, its 
nature, use and abuse, seems to have been an afterthought. 
The chapter on association of ideas and that on Enthu- 
siasm, were not added, indeed, until the fourth edition. 
The first and second books are of a more abstract nature, 
and probably, as Stewart suggests, opened gradually on the 
author's mind as he advanced in his work and in years. 
Of these books Stewart says that while they are inferior in 
point of general utility to the two last, " I do not hesitate 
to consider them as the richest contribution of well observed 
and well-described facts which was ever bequeathed to this 
branch of science by a single individual ; and as the indis- 
putable (though not always acknowleged) source of some 
of the most refined conclusions with respect to the intellec- 
tual phenomena which have been since brought to light by 
succeeding inquirers. " 

The same author very justly remarks with respect to 



LOCKE. 293 

the style of the essay, " that it resembles that of a well- 
educated and well-informed man of the world, rather than 
a recluse student who had made an object of the art of 
composition," and he thinks this circumstance may have 
contributed not only to the popularity of the work, but to 
the design he had in view, of turning public attention to 
this class of subjects. Shaftesbury, who severely criticises 
the system, says notwithstanding, that no one has done 
more toward the recalling of philosophy from barbarity into 
use and practice of the world, and into the company of the 
better and politer sort, who might well be ashamed of it 
in its other dress. No one has opened a better and clearer 
way to reasoning." 

It was not so much the clearness and elegance of the 
style, however, as it was the author's well-known character 
and celebrity as a firm and tried and earnest advocate of 
civil and religious liberty, that contributed to the general 
interest with which the work was received on its first 
publication. Four editions were printed in ten years, 
and in a subsequent impression the author refers to the 
sixth edition, so that the w^ork passed through seven edi- 
tions at least in the fourteen years preceding his death. 
The thirteenth edition had been issued as early as 1748. 
Soon after its first publication the work was translated 
into French, and though Descartes was preeminent 
in France and Holland, and Leibnitz in Germany, still 
Locke found not a few to appreciate and admire him, 
and his work gradually gained great influence on the 
continent. In his own country, while Oxford denied him 
a place on the roll of her members, and his book a place 
in her halls, Cambridge on the other hand bestowed on 
him an admiration little short of idolatry. The result 
of this rapid and wide circulation soon showed itself in 
the remarkable change which manifested itself in the 
philosophic writing and thinking of England, and to 
a great degree of the continent. It led men to make use 



294 LOCKE. 

of their own reason to a degree they had never before 
done. Indeed this is the characteristic feature of the 
essay, in the opinion of Mr. Stewart, and to this general 
effect of his writings in leading men to think and reason 
for themselves, he supposes the essay is chiefly indebted 
for its immense influence on the philosophy of the eigh- 
teenth century. 

But it is time to inquire what was the philosophy of 
Locke. If we were to look for some one principle that 
should be regarded as the foundation of his system, doubt- 
less it would be this, that it is useless to inquire into the 
great and hidden problems of philosophy, before we have 
first explored the human mind itself, and learned its nature, 
capacity, and powers ; that psychology must first be under- 
stood before ontology ; that the proper method and true 
instruments of investigation in this science, are observation 
and consciousness j the basis of all our knowledge respect- 
ing it, experience. In this brief outline of the system, this 
ground-plan of it, we recognize at once the Baconian spirit 
and method, substituting experiment and observation in 
place of speculation and conjecture and theory. 

Locke's great object and merit, as Tennemann remarks, 
was ^^ the investigation of the origin, reality, limits and uses 
of knowledge." The ultimate source of all our knowledge is 
experience, which, however, is twofold in its channels — 
sensation and reflection. The latter term he uses to denote 
the perception of the operations of our minds, and speaks 
of it in one place as a kind of internal sense. Hence his 
system, built as it would seem to be, on sensation in great 
measure, is usually denominated — with what propriety we 
ihall presently inquire — sensational or (in the philosophic 
?ense of the term) sensual. Our ideas are of two kinds : 
simple, such as solidity, space, extension, figure, num- 
ber, motion, existence, time, power, etc. ; and com- 
pound, deduced from the simple ones by some mental 
process, as comparison, abstraction, etc. Such are our 



LOCKE. 295 

ideas of accident, substance, relation, etc. (Book ii. chap. 2). 
The doctrine of innate ideas, as held by Descartes and 
others, he rejects. Of our simple ideas, some represent 
primary qualities, as extension, solidity, figure, number, 
etc. some secondary^ as color, sound, scent, etc. (chap. yiii. 
§§7, 9, 10). 

The ideas of primary qualities are resemblances of what 
really exist in bodies, but the ideas we have of secondary 
qualities have no such resemblance. "There is nothing 
like our ideas existing in the bodies themselves," but " only 
a power to produce those sensations in us " (Book ii. chap. 
Tiii. §15). Our knowledge, so far as reg-ards this part of it, 
is wholly subjective. There is no conceivable connection 
between these qualities of bodies, and the effects produced 
on us by them ; they have no aflBinity at all with those 
ideas they produce in us. We know them only by experi- 
ence, and can reason about them only as incomprehensible 
effects produced by the Creator. (As regards both primary 
and secondary qualities, however, and all other objects of 
knowledge, all that we immediately know, all that we can in 
fact hnow or contemplate, is not tliin-gs themselves, but only 
our own ideas. These are the real objects of our hnoioledge). 

There are two or three points requiring, more careful 
investigation in connection with this system as now briefly 
sketched. One is the use which Locke makes of the term 
rejiection, what he means by it and whether or not it really 
introduces an element or source of knowledge altogether 
distinct from sensation. Another is as to the sense in which 
he uses the term idea, whether to denote something dis- 
tinct from the mind in operation, or not. 

Another question of importance relates to the correct- 
ness of his views of the origin of our ideas, whether they 
are all capable of being traced to sensation or not, or even 
to sensation and reflection ; more than that, whether the 
question of the origin of our ideas is a right and proper 
question to be entertained in psychology. 



296 LOCKE. 

All these are disputed points, on most of them the dis- 
pute has been warm and long protracted, and according to 
the view taken of them is the yiew one takes of Locke's 
system as a whole. As to the first question, Locke's use of 
the term reflection. It is contended by many of his critics, 
especially Cousin, that Locke really reduces all our knowl- 
edge to sensation, that reflection, as he uses the term, in- 
troduces no new element of knowledge, that it changes 
not the character of the objects on which it is employed, 
that, after all, we have to do on this system only with 
sensible phenomena. They charge him, accordingly, with 
overlooking a very important class of our conceptions, 
those of reason, or rather with omitting entirely that 
important function, and asigning its office to reflection. 
This is the view generally taken of Locke by continental 
writers. They persist in regarding him a mere sensation- 
alist, and class him in the same category with Hobbes and 
Gassendi, who had preceded, and with Condillac, Diderot, 
and Condor cet, who, professing to be his disciples and fol- 
lowers, carried out his principles to the extreme of materi- 
alism. The position of Locke is doubtless unfortunate in 
placing him thus on either side in immediate contiguity 
with avowed sensationalists, especially as on one side they 
profess to derive their views and principles from him. 
That he himself held these views or would allow himself to 
be classed with that school — notwithstanding the high 
authority of Leibnitz and Cousin, and the Germans, and 
even of those Erench metaphysicians who avow themselves 
as his disciples while they teach materialism — is, after all, 
very doubtful. Mr. Stewart, in his first dissertation, has 
been at considerable pains to show that this view is quite 
incorrect, that Locke is by no means a sensationalist. 
Lewes, himself a sensationalist but an admirer of Locke, 
also takes this view. But let us inquire of Locke himself. 
" The other fountain," he says, ^'from which experience 
furnisheth the understanding with ideas, is the perception 



LOCKE. 297 

of the operations of our own minds within us ; as it is em- 
ployed about the ideas it has got ; which operations, when 
the soul comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the 
understanding with another set of ideas, which could not 
he had from things without ; and such are perception, 
thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, 
and all the different actings of our own minds, which we, 
being conscious of, and obserying in ourselves, do from 
these receive into our understandings ideas as distinct as 
we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source of 
ideas every man has wholly in himself, and though it le not 
sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it 
is very like it, and might properly enough be called 
internal sense. But as I call the other sensation so I call 
this reflection, the ideas it affords being such only as the 
mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself " 
(Book ii. ch. i. §4). Plainly enough, then, Locke does 
mean to make our knowledge of ticofold origin. He does 
not intend to trace it all to sensation. Plainly enough also, 
by reflection he means the attentive consideration of what 
passes in our own minds, of our own mental operations — 
in other words, consciousness. But now the question 
arises, whether reflection, as thus defined, does, after all, 
furnish us a new source of ideas, whether, as regards the 
material of thought, it really adds anything to what sen- 
sation furnishes, or simply busies itself with observing what 
the mind is about as it works over and makes use of these 
materials. This is the main question. It is very well 
stated and very closely pressed by Morell and Cousin. 
They argue with considerable clearness and force that, 
according to this" view, the operations of the mind, which 
it is the province of reflection to observe, being employed 
only about sensible things, do not and cannot of themselves 
add anything to the materials on which they operate, so 
that the senses, after all, are the sole inlet of our ideas, 
and ultimate source of all our knowledge. Yes, Locke 
13* 



298 LOCKE. 

would say, they are so, as regards all our knowledge of the 
sensible world, but not of all our knowledge, for we know 
some things that are not sensible, we know mind. Those 
operations, as Locke analyzes them, about which reflection 
is conversant, are perception, retention, discernment, com- 
parison, composition, abstraction, all of which evidently 
employ themselves with such ideas as are already in the 
mind, such materials of thought as they find ready at hand, 
which materials he is ready to admit are furnished by sen- 
sation. It does not follow, however, that by reflection, 
after all, we come into possession of no new material of 
thought other than what is furnished by the senses, for 
manifestly we do gain this knowledge at least, the simple 
consciousness thatiue have such and such faculties, i. e., the 
Jcnowledge of the me, m distinction from the KOT ME, and 
this, certainly a most important addition to our stores of 
knowledge, this knowledge of the mind's own faculties 
seems to me all that Locke intended to bring in under the 
term reflection. Is he then a pure sensationalist? Cer- 
tainly not. The external world is not the only thing we 
know, not the only source and origin of ideas to us. 
What else do we know ? We know our own mental facul- 
ties. How do we know these ? By observation of their 
operations, i, e., by reflection. 

There is the great sensible world without, matter, that 
we know by sensation. There is the little conscious world 
within — mind — that we know by reflection. These tivo are 
the sources of our knowledge. So he says himself, '^ External 
objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities ; 
and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its 
02vn operations.'' Nothing can be plainer. Of these two, in- 
deed, he contends, that we know the latter much better than 
the former, mind better than body, more clearly, exactly, 
certainly, definitely ; no materialist. Locke admits, however 
that ideas of sensation are those first awakened in the mind ; 



LOCKE. 299 

that reflection comes in at a later period, which of course 
all must admit. 

We pass now to the inquiry, in what sense does Locke 
use the term idea. Eeid attributes to him the long-received 
opinion that ideas are a sort of independent and real exist- 
ences, something intermediate between the mind and 
external objects, something distinct from the mind itself, 
not a modification of the mind, not the mind thus and thus 
affected, or thus and thus acting or thinking, but a tertium 
quid, representing to the mind whatever extrinsic to itself 
becomes the object of its knowledge, the doctrine, in a word, 
of the ancient peripatetics, and of all subsequent philosophy 
down to the time of Eeid himself. Brown denies that 
Locke, or in fact any modern philosopher, held any such 
view, and denies to Reid the credit of overthrowing this 
doctrine. But Brown is unquestionably in the wrong, 
and entirely so, in this. Beyond all doubt Locke was a 
repi'esentationist in his theory of knowledge, a liypothetical 
realist, not a natural realist. Ideas with him represent to 
us the real existence without. It is only by means of them 
that we know anything out of ourselves. Beside the 
perceiving mind and the thing perceived there is the 
intervening idea, as the medium of communication between 
the two : or rather the idea is itself the thing really per- 
ceived, all that we immediately know, the real object of 
our knowledge. " It is evident," he says, " that the mind 
knows not things immediately, but by the intervention of 
the ideas it has of them. Our knowledge, therefore, is real 
only so far as there is a conformity between our ideas and 
the reality of things" (Book iv. chapter 4, §3). But how 
do we know whether there is such a conformity ? A most 
important question. The answer Locke gives to this ques- 
tion is this : Our ideas are such as nature and the Creator 
ordained ; they represent things to us just as the Creator 
intended they should, hence they '' are not fictions of our 
fancies, but the natural and regular productions of things 



300 LOCKE. 

without us really operating upon us ; and so carry with 
them all the conformity which is intended, or which our 
state requires, for they represent things to us under those 
appearances, which they are fitted to produce in us." 
This is a short solution of the problem. It resolves the 
evidence of the existence of a material world into the 
assumed premise that God would not constitute us with 
faculties fitted only to deceive, precisely the Cartesian 
ground. In fact in his whole philosophy, as Dugald Stew- 
art has fully shown, Locke is much more a Cartesian than a 
Hobbesist ; much more a Cartesian indeed, than he doubt- 
less supposed himself to be. However that may be, in the 
present case, Locke's answer is no solution at all of the 
great problem. It simply cuts the Gordian knot, as Lewes 
says. It unravels no difficulty. In fact his doctrine, as 
now stated, contains the germ of all the idealism and scep- 
ticism of Hume and Berkeley — as we shall by and by have 
occasion to see. All that we hnow is our own ideas, nor 
have we any proof that there is anything external and 
real to correspond to these ideas. Thus was the text fur- 
nished by Locke from which the idealism and scepticism of 
the succeeding century preached ore rotundo its most 
obnoxious but inevitable conclusions. 

But it is of still more moment to inquire. Was Locke 
right in ascribing the origin of all our ideas to sensation 
and reflection alone ? Have we no ideas which cannot 
be thus resolved ? Are our ideas of timey space, infinity, 
identity, power, suhstance, etc., capable of being thus 
disposed of ? This is the grand question in dispute 
between the idealist and the sensationalist, the German 
and the English schools. The idea of space, Locke derives 
from sight and touch (Book ii. chap. 13, §2). It is an 
inference from the idea of body. The idea of time he 
derives " from reflection on the train of our own ideas," 
the result of our own consciousness of existence (Book ii. 
chap. 14, §2, §3). The idea of Infinity he derives from 



LOCKE. 301 

the continual addition of finites, " a supposed endless 
progression" (Book ii. chap. 17, §§3, 5, 8, 9), the nega- 
tion of the finite. The idea is not positive but nega- 
tive (chap, xviii. §13). Identity consists in consciousness 
(Book ii. chap. 27, §9). The idea of power he derives 
from the observation of our own motive faculty, and the 
effect of natural bodies on each other (Book ii. chap. 7, 
§8) ; and also from reflection on our own mental changes 
and impressions (chap. 21, §1). The idea of substance 
(Book ii. ch. 23, §2), is merely that of a cluster of sensa- 
tions supposed to adhere in some imaginary substratum. 
Things are good or evil only with reference to pleasure or 
pain (Book ii. ch. 20, §2). Our ideas of virtue and vice 
are the result, not the basis, of ideas of reward and pun- 
ishment, (Book i. ch. 3. §6). 'Now against all this we 
enter, not our question, our doubt merely, but, with Cousin, 
Morell, and others, our decided protest. Can we conceive 
of body without space ? Of the succession of thought 
without time ? Of our own operations as our own without 
identity ? Of quality as pertaining to no substance ? If 
not, then to derive the latter class of ideas from the former 
is absurd ; we might with equal propriety derive the former 
from the. latter — body from space, etc. 

The error of Locke in this has been well pointed out 
by Morell and Cousin, and prior still by Kant. The origin 
of a thing may denote either its occasion or its producing 
cause. Locke confounds the two things — sensation may 
be the occasion, it may not be the cause of the ideas above 
named. A spark may be the occasion of the explosion of 
gunpowder. The chemical nature and inherent properties 
of the powder may be the real cause of the explosion, which 
needed but the occasion to develop itself in operation, 
which, however, but for tJie occasion would never have 
shown its power. So sensation may be the occasion needed 
and given, upon which certain faculties of the mind shall 
come into operation, which but for the occasion would 



302 LOCKE. 

have slumbered foreyer. Yet not sensation but those 
faculties, that inherent constitution and nature of the 
mind, are the true cause of the action. Now the ideas 
themselves may not be innate, doubtless are not, but the 
faculties or principles or laws of the mind which, on the 
given occasion, give rise to those ideas, these are innate, 
and are the true source of the ideas. 

" The spirit of man," says Morell, " just like the seed, 
has its inherent energy within itself. The grain of wheat 
has in it, potentially, the ear that is to wave in the next 
summer's sun, and the acorn, in its little circumference, 
encloses the oak that is to bear the blast of ages. In the 
same manner does the mind at birth contain potentially 
all the elements of the future man, neither more nor less. 
But as the seed must come in contact with the soil to 
call its hidden powers into development, so must the mind 
come into contact with the world of experience, in order 
that its energies may unfold themselves, and produce their 
own proper fruits " (Hist. Phil. p. 86). This is doubtless 
the true doctrine. Would Locke have dissented from it ? 
probably not. But it was a distinction which he seems to 
have overlooked when he undertook to derive all our ideas 
from experience, and made that the source and origin of 
all. There are certain ideas which can by no means be thus 
reduced within the domain of sensible experience. Our ideas 
of space — time, and cause, and substance ; of infinity and 
personal identity ; of right and wrong, and perhaps some 
thers, are of this class. They spring up in the mind by vir- 
tue of the mind's own inherent power, its native constitu- 
tion, the laws of its being, so soon as the fitting occasion is 
furnished by experience. We may call these inherent laws of 
the mind principles of common se?ise with Reid, fundamen- 
tal laws with Stewart, principles of intuitive belief with 
Brown, or with Kant the necessary forms of the understand- 
ing — whatever we call them, they and not sensation or 
experience are the real cause and origin of a large and very 



LOCKE. 303 

important class of our ideas. There is a scientific method 
of stating this subject adopted by Cousin, which is clear 
and precise. The origin of any idea he calls the logical 
condition of its existence ; its occasion the CHEOJsrOLOGiCAL 
(Hist, de la Phil. Le9on 17). Of any two ideas, that is the 
logical condition of the other, which virtually includes or 
involves the other. The chronological is that we first become 
conscious of. Logically, e. g. the idea of space is the con- 
dition of that of body, since we cannot conceive of body 
but as in space ; chronologically it may be otherwise, the 
idea of body may be even the first to occur to the mind, 
on occasion of sensible experience. Logically, all our 
abstract ideas are primary ones and involve those of sensa- 
tion and experience ; chronologically the ideas of sensation 
and experience are contemporary with the former, if not 
in order of time prior to them. It would be, then, scien- 
tifically more correct to say that the idea of space is the 
origin of that of body, than the reverse, since the former 
logically includes the latter. 

It has been very generally supposed that Locke's system 
of philosophy was subversive of all moral distinctions. If 
the mind of man is a mere tahula rasa at birth, has no 
innate ideas, no innate laws of thought, then virtue and 
vice, good and evil, are mere arbitrary distinctions, it is 
said, — creations of human law. Shaftesbury accuses him 
of throwing all law and virtue out of the world and mak- 
ing the very ideas of these unnatural and without founda- 
tion in our minds. Dr. Beattie urges a similar complaint. 
Both, however, acquit him from any such intention. 
Fortunately there are passages in which Locke unequiv- 
ocally avows his firm belief in the natural and immutable 
foundation of moral distinctions, of virtue and vice, of the 
idea of a Grod. "^^I would not be mistaken," he says, "as 
if because I deny an innate law I thought there were none 
but positive laws. There is a great deal of difference 
between an innate law and a law of nature ; between 



304 LOCKE. 

something imprinted on our minds in their original, and 
something that we, being ignorant of, may attain to the 
knowledge of by the use and due application of our natural 
faculties, (Book i. ch. 3. § 13). In another place, he 
speaks of the extreme danger of principles ^^ taken up with- 
out due question or examination ; especially if they be such 
as influence men's lives and give a basis to all their 
actions. He that, with Archelaus, shall lay it down as a 
principle that right and wrong, honest and dishonest, are 
defined only by laws and not by nature, will have other 
measures of moral rectitude and pravity, than those who 
take it for granted that we are under obligations antece- 
dent to all human constitutions." We cannot, then, 
admit the justice of the charge so frequently brought 
against Locke, at least as regards his real opinions and his 
sincere intentions. Whether the tendency, however, of 
his philosophical system on the luliole is favorable or not 
to sound views of truth may admit of question. It is 
a significant fact that the great majority of Locke's avowed 
disciples and followers have advocated essentially the 
views of Hobbes and Gassendi, as Stewart himself re- 
luctantly admits, and that from the principles of his 
philosophy subsequently Hume and Berkeley derived the 
materials for the strongest and most impregnable system 
of scepticism ever constructed by man. "It must be 
confessed," says Morell, *^that notwithstanding all the 
admirable lessons which his writings contain, they mani- 
fested a decided leaning towards sensationalism, and 
included, although unknown to himself, germs which 
after a time bore the fruits of utilitarianism in morals, of 
materialism in metaphysics, and of scepticism in religion " 
(Hist. Phil. p. 95). We are not surprised, on the whole, 
at the popularity of his writings in France — at their 
enthusiastic reception by Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. 
Yet from all this Locke would have shrunk with horror. 
He was a genuine lover of virtue, truth and morality. His 



SUCCESSORS OF LOCKE. 



305 



character is of the noble, lofty sort. He was born a sage. 
His disinterested patriotism, his loye of liberty, his personal 
integrity and unbending rectitude, his zeal for the advance- 
ment of true religion and manly piety, his liberality and 
tolerance, his ready forgiveness of injuries, his moderation 
and calmness of temper, are equalled only by the strength 
and acuteness of his intellect. No name is more worthy of 
honor, no tomb in Westminster Abbey will inspire in your 
bosom profounder emotion than the simple monument of 
John Locke in the plain country church which shelters his 
honored dust. 



CHAPTER IX. 



SUCCESSOES OF LOCKE li^ ENGLAN"D AND FKAKCE. 

It has been already remarked that very many of the 
professed disciples of Locke were decided materialists, and 
while calling themselves by his name were really indebted 
not to him but to Hobbes and Gassendi for their principles. 
In order to trace the progress of philosophy from this 
period onward in Europe, it becomes necessary to dwell a 
little upon this point, and mark out more definitely the 
positions and doctrines of some of the more celebrated suc- 
cessors of Locke. Of the Deistical school of English writers 
which flourished at this period the main and avowed philos- 
ophy was in its essential principles a sj^stem of material- 
ism, based upon the conclusions of Locke. Collins built 
on this foundation a stern and gloomy doctrine of necessity. 
Mandeville struck boldly at the root of all morality and vir- 
tue with the doctrine borrowed from Locke, that there are 
no innate principles of human action. These dangerous 
publications called out the strength of such controversialists 
as Stillingfleet, Shaftesbury, ISTorris and, par eminence, 
Clark. Into the merits of this grand controversy, wherein 



306 SUCCESSORS OF LOCKE 

not so much pliilosophy as theology was the goddess of the 
strife, we cannot enter. 

In the domain of speculative philosophy, Hartley 
stands prominent as a sensationalist, deriving his princi- 
ples from the system of Locke. He was, like Locke, a 
physician, educated at Cambridge, and was led by the 
nature of his profession to give a decidedly physiological 
cast to his psychological investigations. He undertook 
to account for the phenomena of sensation, which Locke 
had wisely left unattempted, by the theory of vibrations. 
His fame rests however chiefly on his doctrine of associa- 
tion, a term first used by Locke, but employed in a new 
and much wider sense by Hartley to denote, as stated by 
Morell, ^^ any combination of thought and feeling which is 
capable of becoming habitual by means of repetition." The 
theory is that the vibrations produced along the nerves by 
the action of external objects, when oft repeated, have a 
tendency to reproduce or repeat themselves spontaneously, 
even in the absence of the external object. These repeti- 
tions are ideas, relics of former sensations, and by mutual 
association they recall each other. Sensations, ideas, and 
muscular movements are all thus affected by the law of 
association. Our emotions, passions, natural and reli- 
gious affections, are all traced to and included under sen- 
sation. As all our ideas and emotions are controlled 
according to the laws of association, man is a passive being, 
will is a nonentity, necessity rules all things. Tliough not 
himself a materialist, the system of course was decidedly of 
that tendency. Priestly carried out the principles of Hart- 
ley, which he adopted and maintained with enthusiasm, 
to their natural result — bold materialism. 'Thought and 
sensation are with him, essentially the same thing. Dar- 
win carries out the scheme still further and banishes the 
idea of spirit from the universe, leaving only the powers 
of nature in place of God. This is the goal of sensational- 
ism in this direction — bold atheism. In the sensational 



IK EKGLAKD AKD FRANCE. 307 

school of England there are other names of celebrity. Tooke 
the grammarian, Bentham the moralist and politician, 
Paley, the pleasing, accomplished, superficial moralist and 
theologian, are all of this school, building, each in his way 
and his department, with the essential principles of the 
great master of English philosophy. 

More noted as metaphysicians were the French disciples 
of the school of Locke. Chief of these Oondillac, next 
Condorcet. These writers were thorough and decided 
sensationalists ; philosophers both of no mean reputation or 
merit. Losing sight of the second source of knowledge as 
laid down by Locke, they make all our ideas transformed 
sensations, and profess to follow Locke in so doing. The 
source of most of our mental faculties is found in language, 
the parent and origin of our distinctive intellectual powers. 
A statue is represented, or a perfectly organized human 
being enclosed in marble, which little by little comes to 
consciousness and sensation ; first an idea is perceived, then 
sensation and attention are developed, next other sensa- 
tions; these are remembered, compared, etc., thus step by 
step the whole machinery of mind comes into play, and all 
as the result of sensation and experience alone. Oondillac 
is one of the chief philosophers of France of that century. 
Condorcet, epicurean in his philosophy, advocates strongly 
the perfectibility of the race by means of educational 
development. Diderot, D'Alembert, Voltaire, the whole 
school of Encyclopedists, following in the track of this sys- 
tem, carrying out with more or less consistency its princi- 
ples, close this period of philosophy. 



308 BEEKELEY. 



CHAPTER X. 



BERKELEY. 



The idealism of Descartes, carried out in Spinoza, 
Malebranche and Leibnitz, as also the materialism of Hobbes 
and the sensationalism of Locke, carried out in Condillac 
and Condorcet in France, as well as by Hartley, Priestly, 
Collins and Mandeville in England, we have already traced. 
As the result of these opposing tendencies, but more espe- 
cially of the latter, by way of natural reaction, there sprang 
up in England in the early part of the 18th century, a 
school destined to exert no slight influence on the thinking 
mind of Europe, and to claim a considerable notice in the 
history of modern philosophy. Alarmed at the materialis- 
tic and atheistic tendencies of the prevalent sensationalism, 
this school, by a process so natural to the human mind, 
revolted to the opposite extreme of absolute idealism, and 
carried that theory to its farthest results. The consequence 
was the blank denial of material existence and finally even 
of the mind itself. 

The first distinguished advocate of the views to which 
we refer was G-eorge Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne; born 
12th of March 1684 in Killerin, county of Kilkenny, Ire- 
land, educated at Trinity college, Dublin, of which he 
became a fellow in 1707 ; his first work, entitled a New 
Theory of Vision, appeared two years after, 1709, while the 
author was yet only twenty-five, and at once attracted great 
attention. This introduced him to the notice of distin- 
guished and literary men. He was appointed chaplain and 
secretary to the earl of Peterborough, Ambassador to 
Sicily, and subsequently travelled over a considerable part 
of Europe. In 1724 he was raised to the deanery of Derry. 
About this time he became greatly interested in a project 



BERKELEY. 309 

for tlie conversion of the North American Indians and the 
establishment of a college in the Bermuda Islands, and 
succeeded in interesting many others in his enterprise, 
among them persons of the first rank. Kesigning his living 
of eleven hundred pounds a year, he embarks with his 
young wife, his library and his property, on this romantic 
expedition, and sets sail for Ehode Island. Parliament 
had promised him a stipend of one hundred pounds a year, 
bat this promise was not fulfilled, and after seven years of 
fruitless endeavor, having spent the most of his personal 
property, he is obliged to relinquish the undertaking and 
return to England. He was appointed Bishop of Cloyne 
in 1734. In 1752 he removed to Oxford, where he died 
the year after, 1753, at the age of sixty-nine. His charac- 
ter seems to have commanded universal respect and admi- 
ration. The satirist. Pope, expressed only the common 
opinion of his countrymen in the line ascribing '^ To 
Berkeley every virtue under heaven." He enjoyed the 
regard of Swift and Addison, and the fastidious Atterbury 
said of him, '^ So much learning, so much knowledge, so 
much innocence and such humility, I did not think had 
been the portion of any but angels till I saw this gen- 
tleman. " 

The principal philosophical works of Berkeley, beside 
that already named, were the Treatise on the Principles of 
Human Knowledge, (London 1710,) and the Three Dia- 
logues between Hylas and Philonous, (London 1713,) sub- 
sequently to his return from America, he also published a 
work entitled Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, 
(London 1732). It is in the dialogues that the peculiar 
philosophy of the author is most fully developed. And 
what was that philosophy, and how came Berkeley by those 
views ? 

As I have already intimated, the chief peculiarity of his 
system is its bold denial of the reality of material exist- 
ence, and to this position he was led by observing, with 



310 BEKKELEY. 

regret and alarm, the dangerous extreme to which the later 
disciples of Locke were pushing the principles of the sen- 
sational and material school. By a natural recoil he shrank 
from that result, and sought a secure retreat for truth and 
philosophy in opinions, the farthest removed from those of 
the prevalent and so dangerous doctrines. In common 
with Descartes and all preceding philosophers, Locke had 
taken the ground that the mind knows and is conversant 
with only its own ideas. These and not things external to 
itself are the proper and immediate, and only true ohjects of 
its knowledge, a principle that reigned unquestioned in phi- 
losophy, from Plato down to Eeid. It knows itself — its 
own sensations, impressions, ideas, — farther than that, as to 
any external cause of those sensations or impressions, it only 
infers, but not strictly knows. This is called by Hamilton 
the representative theory of perception, and those who hold 
it are termed representationists, in distinction from natural 
realism, or the doctrine of the immediate perception of ex- 
ternal objects themselves. Here the acute eye and quick 
discernment of Berkeley discovered a way of escape from the 
all-surrounding forces of inexorable materialism. Ha, 
exclaims the shrewd Irishman in the close corner, we 
know nothing but our own ideas and sensations then ! 
Nothing else, properly speaking, reply his antagonists. 
Pray how then do you know that there is anything else 
beside and beyond our ideas, any such thing as you call the 
material world, at all. Sensationalism is posed, can only 
answer. Why, strictly speaking, we do not know it, but 
only infer it. 

Ha ! ha ! then I think I will just deny that little infer- 
ence of yours, and walk out of my close corner, and now 
gentlemen, catch me if you can. The gentlemen aforesaid 
have been in hot pursuit of the Irish bishop to this day, 
but have not yet laid hands on him, nor ever will. The 
Irish bishop will be caught, if at all, only by the tactics 
of a very different school. Grant him his premise, his 



BERKELEY. 311 

starting point, and no mortal man can ever overtake him. 
If your knowledge of an external world is only representa- 
tive — only an inference, — then if any man chooses to say — 
I deny that inference to be either necessary or just ; I de- 
mand the proof of anything really existing beyond and out 
of my own mental operations and impressions — you can 
never hinder him, he has the start of you, and though he 
go no faster than a tortoise, you are not the Achilles to 
overtake him. Only the natural realist can do that. Now 
this was precisely the case with the Bishop of Oloyne and 
the sensationalists of that age. These were representation- 
alists, and on that account totally unable to refute the 
point blank scepticism of Berkeley. 

Nor was Berkeley a mere metaphysical juggler and gladi- 
ator in all this, throwing up daggers and catching in his 
teeth just for the sport of it. He was a sincere, earnest, 
patient seeker after truth. In the philosophy of Locke he 
felt certain there was some latent error. There must be 
something wrong in the philosophy of sensationalism, since 
it led to such results. Carefully running his keen eye 
along the system, he discovered, as he thought, the lurk- 
ing-place of that latent error — discovered the false quantity 
that had so deranged the whole calculation ; — discovered 
that the passage from psychology to ontology, from the 
world within to the world without, from mere thought and 
sensation to external realities, as the cause and occasion of 
the same, had always been, and in all systems taken for 
granted, merely assumed, never demonstrated to be either 
necessary or possible. What if I make my attack just here, 
says Berkeley, what if I call in question the possibility of any 
such passage from the inner to the outer world ; what if I 
deny altogether any such process and conclusion — what 
becomes of materialism — who can drive me from such a 
position ? He saw his advantage, and discovered as he 
supposed, not merely the weak point in the opposite phi 
losophy, but the stronghold and vantage ground of truth. 



312 BEBKELEY. 

There he intrenched himself, and there his flag floated in 
triumph till the philosophy of common sense put to rout 
both him and his antagonists, by showing that both mate- 
rialist and idealist were involved in one common error and 
mistake — that ideas were not in fact the sole immediate 
objects of knowledge. 

Berkeley, in denying the reality of anything external to 
the mind itself, labors much to show that he is not in con- 
flict with the common sense and commonly received opin- 
ions of mankind. An able writer in Blackwood's Magazine, 
(June, 1842) takes high ground in his defence upon this 
point, and still more recently, a writer whom we have fre- 
quently cited, Lewes, in his chapter* on Berkeley, goes 
fully over to this view of the case, contending that all 
Berkeley really denied was the existence of that unknown 
substratum termed matter, which philosophers had con- 
ceived as the hasis underlying all sensible qualities — a 
mere philosophical abstraction — a metaphysical entity, and 
nothing more, while the qualities themselves, the things 
seen, felt, handled, perceived, he admits to have a real 
existence. To this effect he quotes Berkeley, saying : "I 
do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we 
can apprehend either by sensation or reflection. That the 
things I see with my eyes, and touch with my hands do 
exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only 
thing whose existence I deny is that which philosophers call 
matter or corporeal substance." " That what I see, hear, 
and feel, doth exist, i. e. is perceived hy rue, (mark these 
last words) I no more doubt than I do of my own being." 
It is perfectly idle now to cite passages from Berkeley to 
show that he was merely at war with metaphysical abstrac- 
tions and not with the common sense of mankind ; that he 
denied not the real existence of the sensible world as it lies 
around and without us, but only a philosophical conception. 
When he says in his own behalf, and his apologists say for 

* History of Philosophy. Modern Philosophy, Epoch, iv. ch. 1. 



BERKELEY. 313 

him, that he fully admits the existence of what he sees, 
hears, and feels, the question is what sort of an existence 
he means to allow these things — an existence wlieref as 
what ? in the mind merely or out of it ? as mere modes of 
the thinking mind or as independent existences ? To this 
question Berkeley makes but one answer. They exist, that 
is, are perceived hy him, exist as ideas exist in the mind, 
have real existence as all our thoughts and conceptions 
have, but only as modes of our own mental being. I fully 
admit the existence of what I see, hear, feel, etc., says B. 
But Mr. Berkeley, do you mean to say that these sensible 
appearances are anything more than phenomena, that they 
exist anywhere out of the mind that thinks and perceives 
them ? Oh. Not at all. *' It is indeed an opinion strangely 
prevailing among men that houses, mountains, rivers, in a 
word, all sensible objects have an existence natural and real, 
distinct from their leing perceived iy the understanding.^^ 
"The table I write on, I say, exists, i. e., I see and feel it, 
and if I were out of my study I should say it existed, mean- 
ing there'by that if I was in my study I might perceive it, 
or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. As to 
what is said about the existence of unthinking things, with- 
out any relation to their being perceived, that is to me 
perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it 
possible they shotdd have any existence out of the minds of 
thinking leings ivhich perceive them.^^ Nothing can be 
plainer than this doctrine, unless it be the following 
account of precisely the same doctrine. "In a word all the 
choir of heaven and furniture of earth, all those bodies 
which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not 
any subsistence without a mind ; their esse is to be perceived 
or known, and consequently so long as they are not actually 
perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind, or that of any 
other created spirit, they must either have no existence at 
all or else subsist in the mind of some eternal spirit.^' 

Berkeley, then, was, out and out, an idealist. He 
14 



314 HUME. 

admits the reality of things, but only as phenomena, — only 
as ideas in and impressions on the mind, — no other reality 
or existence have sensible objects. The distinction between 
primary and secondary qualities he breaks down and shows 
that both are merely sensations in ns. But how are these 
phenomena, these sensations produced ? Not by the ex- 
istence of what philosophers call matter, but by the direct 
agency of Deity, acting upon us through laws of nature by 
Him established, thus giving permanency and constancy to 
our sensible impressions. 

Such is the substance of Berkeley's system. On the 
ground of the then prevalent philosophy, we fully admit 
that it was unanswerable. No theory of representative 
knowledge can stand its onset. Realism alone can cope 
with it. 



CHAPTER XI. 

HUME. 

With the autobiography of this celebrated man, as 
prefixed to the History of England, it may be presumed 
that every one tolerably familiar with English literature is 
already acquainted. No one, I am sure, has ever read that 
little memoir without admiring its simplicity and beauty, 
and without feeling an interest in the writer. There is no 
need, then, in this connection to do more than simply 
advert to the leading events of his life, before we pass to 
consider his philosophy. 

David Hume was born at Edinburgh, April 26, 1711. 
His father dying while he was yet in early life, the care of 
his education devolved wholly on his mother, who seems to 
have been a woman of more than ordinary ability. He was 
destined for the law, but so strong was his passion for 
literature, that he neglected his professional studies, and 



HUME. 315 

finally retired to France, where he spent three years in 
priyacy, wholly devoted to his favorite pursuits. In 1737 
he went to London and published his '' Treatise on Hum^n 
Nature," which met with no attention or success whatever. 
In 1742 he published, at Edinburgh, his "Essays Moral 
and Political," which attracted more attention. In 1746 he 
offered himself as candidate for the professorship of Moral 
Philosophy at Edinburgh, but was defeated by the yote of 
the Presbytery on account of his known scepticism. That 
year he accompanied General Sinclair, as his secretary in 
his expedition against the Erench coast, and the year 
following on a military embassy to Vienna and Turin. 
During his absence he recast his treatise on Human Nature 
and published it under the title of *^an Inquiry concerning 
the Human Understanding," but with no better success. 
His "Principles of Morals" shared the same fate, but his 
" Political Discourses " were better received. In 1752 he 
was appointed librarian to the Faculty of Advocates at 
Edinburgh. Here he conceived the idea of writing 
history. His first publication in this line, embracing the 
history of the House of Stuart, was received, he says, 
with one cry of reproach, disapprobation and even detesta- 
tion. It was universally decried and neglected. Hume's 
equanimity and perseverance, however, prevailed at last. 
He kept on writing, and England kept on reading and 
abusing, until he fairly won the victory and achieved for 
himself a place among the standard authors of English 
Literature. Subsequently, he attended Lord Hertford as 
ambassador to Paris, where he was received with open 
arms as a man of letters and philosophy. 

He remained there as Charge d' Affaires for some time 
after Lord Hertford's departure, and on returning to Eng- 
land became, in 1767, under secretary of state, under Con- 
way, which post he held till 1769. He then retired to 
Edinburgh on a fortune of one thousand pounds per annum, 
and died in 1776, August 25, in his sixty-fifth year. 



316 HUME. 

It has been well said that the influence of Hume as a 
philosopher has been as much owing to the general alarm 
excited by his doctrines, as to the ingenuity with which 
they were maintained. It is to be remembered, however, 
that Hume is merely a sceptic, not a dogmatist. He takes 
as his premises, the current philosophy of the time, and 
simply shows that on the basis of that philosophy such and 
such things must be true. He places that philosophy 
thereby in a sad dilemma, it is true, lands it in inevitable 
scepticism. But he surely is not to blame for that. What 
were the premises furnished by the prevalent philosophy of 
the age ? Locke had shown that all our knowledge was 
dependent on experience, and that we know nothing 
immediately but our own ideas. Berkeley had shown that 
Ave have no experience of an external world independent 
of perception, that we perceive in reality only our own 
ideas, and that these ideas give us no information, no expe- 
rience of that world, nor can do so, in a word, that we have 
]io experience of anything beyond certain sensible qualities, 
which are in fact: only impressions or ideas made upon our 
senses, that the substratum, which we call matter and in 
which we suppose those qualities to inhere, is only a fig- 
ment of the imagination. Hume found philosophy thus 
far on her way to scepticism ; the path before her was a 
plain and obvious one ; there was no mistaking it, no turn- 
ing aside. She must either retrace her course, and start- 
ing anew, pursue quite another route, or keep on over 
the precipice. Hume thought she might as well keep on, 
now she had come so far, and, taking the reins where 
Berkeley dropped them, like a bold and reckless charioteer, 
dashed on and over into the bottomless abyss of utter 
scepticism. He did not choose the road ; is not responsi- 
ble for its having been chosen and so far pursued ; is not 
responsible for the final overturn, any further than that he 
fearlessly and consistently forced the result which he saw 
to be inevitable. 



HUME. 317 

Belieying with Locke that our ideas are the only objects 
of knowledge, and with Berkeley that our ideas give us no 
reason to conclude the existence of anything beyond and out 
of ourselves, he saw that there was but one step more want- 
ing to carry out the system and make it complete, and that 
step must be taken. If there is no evidence, said he, of 
any occult substratum called matter, as its basis of the 
qualities that strike our sense, what hinders me from 
denying also that occult substratum called mind, in which 
our thoughts and impressions are commonly supposed to 
inhere ? If all that I know is simply my ideas themselves, 
then what becomes not only of matter as a basis of sensible 
qualities, but of mind as basis of mental phenomena ? sup- 
pose I deny the latter altogether ? Philosophy stands 
aghast at the dilemma, but perceives no way of escape. 
There is the precipice and over she must go, and over she 
goes, all the world of course cursing the charioteer, as being 
the sole author and cause of the mischief. Dr. Brown 
himself could have done no better, however, — admits that 
the reasoning by which this conclusion is reached is unan- 
swerable. And so indeed it is for all who, with Brown and 
Locke and the earlier philosophers, admit that ideas are 
the only immediate objects of our knowledge. Drive in at 
that gate and there is no escaping the precipice. Nor does 
it make the least difference, as Sir W. Hamilton has well 
shown, whether you regard ideas, with Plato and Descartes, 
as something other than simple modes of the mind itself, 
or whether, with Brown and others, you regard them as 
mere modifications of mind, in either case the result is 
inevitable. All evidence is gone of anything as reality to 
correspond to these our ideas, and if any man, choosing to 
be consistent, denies that reality, no answer remains nor 
is possible. Neither Hume nor Berkeley, it is to be 
remembered, denied the subjective reality of sensible im- 
pressions, but only their objective reality. Their appear- 
ance as phenomena both fully admitted, but refused to 



318 THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 

admit anything more than that. Both declare that the 
common belief in these phenomena as real existences is not 
only universal but inevitable ; that we are so constituted 
that we must proceed upon that principle. Hume ex- 
pressly declares that neither he nor any other man ever 
rested in the positive disbelief of material and mental exis- 
tence. But at the same time he can give no reason for 
that belief, though he finds himself compelled to act upon 
it, — ^nay perceives that it is altogether without a reason. 
This is the amount of his scepticism. Manifestly we have 
reached the end of philosophy in this direction. Nothing 
remains but to seek for it a new and entirely different route. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. DR. THOMAS EEID. 

The greatest errors are not unfrequently of the greatest 
use and service to poor mankind. Indeed it not unfre- 
quently happens that next to a great truth the most useful 
thing in the world is a great error ; since it prepares the 
way for and gives rise to great truths. So it has been in 
physical science ; so in speculative philosophy. Of all the 
great and profoundly reflecting minds whose opinions we 
have hitherto sketched in the progress of these lectures, 
no one had with greater boldness and logical consistency 
followed out to extreme and dangerous conclusions, prem- 
ises and principles, then almost universally received in 
philosophy, and thus demonstrated the inherent falsity of 
those principles, than David Hume. Men started as from 
a dream, when they perceived whither their own cherished 
philosophy was leading them. They looked about for some 
way of escape from conclusions so formidable. Everybody 
fell to combating Hume. Theologians, young and old, 
metaphysicians, men of all professions and of none, pressed 



THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 319 

into the lists to break a lance with this Groliath of scepti- 
cism ; the welkin rang with the sonnd of their blows, as one 
after another each new champion tried his weapons on the 
steel-jjlate armor of the redoubtable sceptic. Ere long it 
was discovered that Hnme's coat of mail was perfectly proof 
against all such assaults, that the difficulty and error lay 
back of the conclusions, among the premises which he 
assumed and the philosophy which others had furnished to 
his use ; that if these conclusions were to be successfully 
assailed they must begin by assailing the premises and 
principles on which the conclusions were built, must begin 
in fact, not with David Hume, hut with John Locke, and 
the preceding philosophers. The only way was to retrace 
the steps and seek for a sure and safe path in some other 
direction. Such a movement, accordingly, now commenced. 
Simultaneously in Scotland and in Germany, commenced 
snch a movement. Two distinguished men, patient, pro- 
found, truth-loving, earnest men, much unlike each other, 
quite unknown afc the outset to each other, but animated 
by one common impulse, set about the work of construct- 
ing anew, and on an entirely different basis, the j^hilosophy 
of the human mind. That German was Immanuel Kant ; 
that Scotchman, Thomas Eeid. A brief sketch of the life 
of the latter will form a fitting introduction to the remarks 
we have to offer upon his philosophy. 

Thomas Eeid was born on the 26th of April, 1710, at 
Strachan, a country parish in Scotland, about twenty miles 
from Aberdeen. His father was for fifty years clergyman 
of this parish ; a man of piety, benevolence, unostentatious 
learning and love of letters, purity and simplicity of man- 
ners, virtues inherited from a long line of ancestors, most 
of whom, like himself, had been ministers of the church 
of Scotland. For several generations had his ancestors dis- 
tinguished themselves by a marked fondness for the culti- 
vation of letters, and a propensity to the learned professions. 
One of them was surgeon to King Charles L, another, dis^ 



m 



320 THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 

tingnished as a philosopher and a poet, after extensive 
travel, became secretary to King James in the Greek and 
Latin tongues. By the maternal side, also, the ancestry of 
Dr. Eeid were somewhat distinguished by the same tastes 
and pursuits. 

His mother was of the family of Gregorys, noted as 
mathematicians, one of them the inventor of the reflecting 
telescope ; one of her brothers was professor of astronomy 
at Oxford, and an intimate friend of Sir Isaac Newton ; 
another was professor of mathematics at St. Andrews, and 
another still at Edinburgh. Thus descended from families 
of such hereditary worth and genius, it would have been 
a natural and pardonable ambition that should have 
prompted Eeid to show himself worthy of his ancestry. 
After two years at the parish school, he was sent to Aber- 
deen for classical study, and at the age of twelve or thir- 
teen entered Marischal college, where he studied philosophy 
for three years under Dr. George TurnbuU. The sessions 
of the college at that time were short, however, and the 
instruction superficial, says Mr. Stewart. His residence 
at the university was prolonged, it would seem, beyond the 
usual period, by his appointment as librarian, which 
aiforded him the opportunity he desired for quiet study. 
While thus employed, he formed an acquaintance with Mr. 
John Stewart, afterward professor of mathematics. The 
two friends, in company, prosecuted with great ardor this 
their favorite study, and read together with no little 
delight the Principia of Newton for the first time. In 
1736, Eeid resigned his ofiice, and in company with his 
friend visited England, forming the acquaintance of liter- 
ary men in Oxford, Cambridge and London. In 1737, he 
was presented to the living of New Machar, in Scotland. 
His parishioners, prejudiced and irritated by the system 
of patronage, received him not very cordially, stoutly 
resisted his coming in fact, and even fought to drive him 
away. He incurred not merely violent opposition, but 



THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 321 

personal danger. This prejudice, however, was soon sub- 
dued by his winning manners, his mildness, benevolence 
and patient, faithful attention to his duties, so that when 
he was called, some years after, to another situation, the 
same persons who had so stoutly resisted his first minis- 
trations followed him with their prayers and their tears 
and their earnest blessings. At New Machar, Eeid em- 
ployed his retired and leisure hours in intense and diligent 
study, particularly in relation to the laws of perception 
and the fundamental principles of human knowledge. 

In 1752, he was elected professor of philosophy in 
Kings college, Aberdeen. Here he devoted himself with 
ardor to the pursuits which were to occupy the remainder 
of his life and energies. A literary society was soon formed 
where a number of kindred spirits met weekly for literary 
and philosophic discussions and criticisms. From this 
source emanated at nearly the same time the writings of 
Reid, Gregory, Campbell, Beattie, Gerard. 

The Inquiry into the Human Mind was published in 
1764, but the plan was formed and the subject had been 
deeply studied years before. It was the publication of 
Mr. Hume's treatise on Human Nature that first led him to 
the investigations which resulted in this work. He had in 
his youth admitted without examination, the established 
opinions on which that scepticism was built ; indeed, had 
embraced, as he informs us, the whole Berkeleyan system, 
till finding other consequences to flow from it that gave 
him more uneasiness than the want of a material world, he 
began to inquire what evidence there was for the doctrine 
that all the objects of our knowledge are ideas in our oimi 
minds. That we know only our own thoughts, that all our 
knowledge is subjective, is, as we have seen, the basis of 
the idealism of Berkeley and the scepticism of Hume. 
But it was a principle that had come down unsuspected 
and unchallenged from a remote and venerable antiquity, 
and had received the imprimature of Descartes, Leibnitz 
14* 



322 THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 

ajid Locke. But, thanks to Mr. Hume, the time had now 
come when either this fundamental principle of so many 
different and diverse systems must be given up, or phi- 
losophy itself must be abandoned as hopeless. Patiently 
and with sincere love of truth, Keid set about the work of 
thoroughly exploring and constructing anew the founda- 
tions of science. For more than forty years, he diligently 
pursued his toil, and the Essays on the Intellectual Powers 
published in 1785, and on the Active Powers, in 1788, were 
the ripe and finished results of these years of thought. 

Anxious not to misunderstand or misrepresent his 
opponent, before the publication of his first philosophical 
treatise, the Inquiry, he submitted portions of it, from 
time to time, through the medium of a mutual friend, Dr. 
Blair, to the inspection of Hume himself. Had all con- 
troversies been thus candidly conducted, how much bitter 
and bellicose writing had been spared. Mr. Hume seems 
not, at first, to have relished the idea of another antagonist. 
^'1 wish," says he, " that the parsons would confine them- 
selves to their old occupation of worrying one another, and 
leave philosophers to argue with temper, moderation, and 
good manners." After the perusal of the manuscript, 
however, he seems to have formed quite a different opinion, 
as the following letter to the author indicates : 

^^By Dr. Blair's means, I have been favored with the 
perusal of your performance, which I have read with great 
pleasure and attention. It is certainly very rare that a 
piece so deeply philosophical is wrote with so much spirit, 
and affords so much entertainment to the reader." After 
adverting to some obscurities, which he attributes to the 
circumstance that he had seen the work only in detached 
parts, he continues, ^^for I must do you the justice to own 
that, when I enter into your ideas, no man appears to ex- 
press himself with greater perspicuity than you do, a 
talent which, above all others, is requisite in that species of 
literature which you have cultivated." Professing to for- 



THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 323 

bear criticism till the whole work is before him, he adds, 
"I shall only say, that if you have been able to clear up 
these abstruse and important subjects, instead of being 
mortified, I shall be so vain as to pretend to a share of the 
praise ; and shall think that my errors by having at least 
some coherence, have led you to make a more strict review 
of my principles, which were the common ones, and to 
perceive their futility. As I was desirous to be of some use 
to you I kept a watchful eye, all along, over your style ; 
but it is really so correct, and so good English, that I 
found not anything worth the remarking." 

The candor and generosity of this communication are 
at once remarkable and rare, and go far to raise Mr. 
Hume in our estimation. I cannot forbear to subjoin in 
this connection a part at least of Eeid's reply to this letter. 
After due and handsome acknowledgment of the courtesy 
and kindness of his antagonist, he says, '' whether I have 
any success in this attempt or not, I shall always avow my- 
self your disciple in metaphysics. I have learned more 
from your writings in this kind, than from all others put 
together. Your system appears to me not only coherent in 
all its parts, but likewise justly deduced from principles 
commonly received among philosophers — ^principles which 
I never thought of calling in question, until the conclu- 
sions you drew from them in the treatise on Human ISTature 
made me suspect them. If these principles are solid, your 
system must stand ; . , . I agree with you, therefore, 
that if this system shall ever be demolished, you have a 
just claim to a great share of the praise, both because you 
have made it a distinct and determined mark to be aimed 
at, and have furnished proper artillery for the purpose." 
In a note on this passage, Hamilton observes, ^^Kant 
makes a similar acknowledgment." ^'^By Hume," he says, 
*' I was first startled out of my dogmatic slumber." Thus 
Hume is author, in a sort, of all our subsequent philosophy. 



324 THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 

For out of Reid and Kant, mediately or immediately, all 
our subsequent philosophy is evolved. 

The work of Dr. Reid was well received, at first of 
course chiefly by the few who were prepared to appreciate 
it. Venerable professors, who had spent their lives in 
teaching views and theories which this work wholly sub- 
verts, gave it a cordial reception. 

In 1763, Dr. Reid was elected to the professorship of 
moral philosophy in the University of Grlasgow, where he 
found a large number of choice and congenial spirits. His 
course of instruction here employed five hours every week, 
for six months in the year. His elocution was not attract- 
ive. He read exclusively from his written manuscript, 
nor was his manner of reading impressive, but the clearness 
of his style, the importance of his themes, and the great 
respect which his character commanded, procured him 
numerous and attentive listeners. Mr. Stewart admits 
that his course was wanting in comprehensive and system- 
atic order and arrangement. 

Anxious to perfect his great work, he resigned his post, 
while yet in vigor of body and mind, withdrew from 
public labors, and at the age of seventy and upwards, 
devoted himself to the completion of his principal works, 
the Essays on the intellectual and moral powers of man. 
He died October, 1796, in his eighty-sixth year. 

Doctrines of Reid. 

Mr. Stewart is of opinion that the distinguishing feature 
of Dr. Reid's philosophy is the steady adherence with 
which in all his inquiries, he follows the Baconian method ; 
that to recommend this plan to others was his constant aim 
and favorite topic in his conversation with his friends and 
pupils. Dr. Reid himself, in a letter to Dr. Gregory, says 
of Bacon, I am very apt to measure a man's understand- 
ing by the opinions he forms of that author. 

" We are not surprised, accordingly, to find him aban- 



THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 325 

doning the high a priori road, as it has been called, and 
confining himself in his philosophical writings to the sinijjle 
facts and evident phenomena of observation and experience 
respecting the laws and operations of the human mind. 
We are not surprised to find him attaching great import- 
ance to those first principles and maxims, which lie at the 
foundation of belief, and which it is of the highest moment 
to ascertain and establish. His efforts in this direction 
have given a name, in fact, not to his system alone, but to 
the philosophy of that entire school of which he stands the 
undoubted head and founder, the philosophy of common 
sense. The name is perhaps not happily chosen, the thing 
sigiiified by the name is worthy to be made the foundation 
of a philosophic system. If the Baconian method, so called, 
is of any value in the acquisition of truth, if it admits of 
application to the philosophy of the mind, as well as to 
that of the material world, then is credit due to Reid as 
the first distinctly to apply, and successfully and systemat- 
ically to carry out, this method of investigation in the 
department of psychology. This is beyond question the 
characteristic feature of his philosophy, cool, cautious, dis- 
trustful, even to a fault perhaps, of theories and hypotheses, 
seeking only for facts, trusting only to careful observation 
of, and careful reflection on the palpable and obvious phe- 
nomena of the human mind as reported by consciousness and 
the experience of mankind, it seeks by a careful induction 
of these facts to arrive at certain general conclusions, and 
with these it is content and rests satisfied, not seeking to 
penetrate farther and conjecture the unknown and the 
unknowable. 

It has been objected that to combat the sceptic with 
appeals to common sense, is to degrade philosophy by re- 
ducing the problems of speculative thought to the tribunal 
and judgment of the vulgar and uneducated mass, utterly 
incompetent to decide such questions. This is not so. The 
appeal is not made to the vulgar against the learned, or to 



326 THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 

the common prejudices of unthinking men, against the 
doubts of the speculative reasoner. The tribunal to whicli 
the appeal is made is a different and far higher one than 
this. There are in the constitution of human nature cer- 
tain ground-principles of all belief and all action, on which 
we always, and all proceed in tlie uniform conduct of life, 
and without which all the intercourse of society, all the 
transactions of business, all reasoning, all forethought, all 
judgment of past or future, would be at an end, — principles 
which require no proof, — which admit of none, in fact, — 
universally received, universally acted on by men, — com- 
mon at once to the philosopher and the illiterate. These 
are the fundamental maxims or principles to which, under 
the name, not altogether felicitous, of maxims of common 
sense, the appeal is made by Eeid, and on which as a secure 
basis he erects his philosophical system. It is to be re- 
gretted, as Mr. Stewart himself seems disposed to admit, 
that Dr. Eeid had not more fully elaborated this part of his 
system ; and shown with more completeness and distinct- 
ness, what is this common sense of mankind, its nature, its 
claims to be regarded as the foundation of all philosophic 
investigation and speculation, the number and nature of 
those distinctive principles which find a legitimate place in 
this ground-work of all knowledge. This he should have 
done. And the want of this we regard, with Tissot and 
others, as a serious defect in his philosophy, regarded as a 
complete system. 

It is hardly necessary to state in detail the distinctive 
and several parts of Eeid's philosophy. 

A few general observations and criticisms are all that is 
demanded. 

Aside from the consideration of the method pursued in 
this science, and which he was the first to pursue, if not to 
point out, the chief merit claimed by Dr. Eeid, and by his 
friends in his behalf, as a contribution to the science of the 
human mind, is that of having completely refuted and 



THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 327 

OTerthrown the old and widely-prevalent theory of ideas, 
according to which theory the mind perceives not external 
things themselves and immediately, but only certain ideas 
or images in the mind itself, more or less resembling exter- 
nal things. This, as we have seen, was the open door 
through which idealism and scepticism walked in, as exhib- 
ited by Hume and Berkeley. Yet it was a door which 
such men as Newton and Locke and Leibnitz and Descartes, 
to go no further back, had, without suspicion, passed, and 
left it as they found it, open for all future comers. It was 
no small merit to discover the entire groundlessness and 
fallacy of this assumption, and boldly to discard it, and 
completely overthrow it, and put it out of the way and 
path of philosophy for all future time. That which we see 
and know is not something in our own minds, image, idea, 
or whatever you may please to call it, but the very things 
themselves. Our knowledge of things external is not, as 
all the world has been told, has believed for ages, simply a 
conjectural, mediate, and representative knowledge, but real, 
iinmediate and intuitive. Such was the bold announce- 
ment with which Dr. Eeid startled the repose of the specu- 
lative and reflecting world. The merit of this discovery 
and refutation has been indeed denied him, and that by 
one who should have known better. Dr. Thomas Brown, 
whose philosophy has been justly termed an open revolt 
against that of Dr. Eeid, and who seems anxious to strip 
his distinguished countryman of an honor which justly 
belongs to him, by maintaining that no philosopher of note 
for many years had held any such doctrine as that which 
Eeid assails, — that it was in fact, a mere man of straw, that 
the words, idea, image, etc., were merely figurative and 
metaphorical terms, which Dr. Eeid mistook for literal ex- 
pressions and magnified into a philosophical heresy. As 
this is a somewhat serious charge, and one which, if true, 
quite takes away the foundation not only of Eeid's claim as 
a discoverer, but of his entire philosophy regarded as a dis- 



n 



328 THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 

tinctive system, it deserves serious investigation. No 
man in Europe was so well able to weigh or pass judgment 
on a question of this kind, as Sir W. Hamilton. Never was 
judgment in such a case more carefully, more clearly, more 
fully and decidedly given ; never question and questioner 
more completely and fully put to silence. The result is 
thus expressed. * " With all our admiration of Brown's gen- 
eral talent, we do not hesitate to assert, that in the points 
at issue between the two philosophers, to say nothmg of 
others, he has completely misapprehended Eeid's philoso- 
phy, even in its fundamental position. . . . Dr. Brown is 
not only wrong in regard to Eeid's own doctrine, he is 
wrong, even admitting his interpretation of that philosopher 
to be true, in charging him with a series of wonderful mis- 
conceptions in regard to the opinions universally prevalent, 
touching the nature of ideas. . . If Reid be not always 
correct, his antagonist has failed in convicting him even of 
a single inaccuracy." He then proceeds to consider the 
charge in detail. "It is always unlucky to stumble on the 
threshold. The paragraph in which Dr. Brown opens his 
attack on Reid, contains more mistakes than sentences ; 
and the etymological discussion it involves supposes as 
true, what is not simply false but diametrically opposite to 
the truth. Among other errors, in the first place, the term 
idea was never employed in any system previous to the age 
of Descartes, to denote * little images derived from objects 
without ; ' in the second, it was never used in any phi- 
losophy, prior to the same period, to signify the immediate 
object of perception. " Hamilton proceeds to specify, in all, 
six errors of a similar nature in this one passage of Brown, 
respecting the history of the word idea. In a note he adds 
that, previous to the age of Descartes, as a philosophic term 
it was employed exclusively in a Platonic meaning and 
'^ this meaning wsispreciseli/ the reverse of that attributed to 
the word by Dr. Brown, — the idea was not an object of per- 

* See Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1830. 



THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 329 

ception, — the idea was not derived from without," that 
neither in the schools, nor after the revival of letters, was 
the word used as a psychological term, by the Aristotelians 
or others, but had only a theological signification, that it 
came into use as a psychological term to denote the imme- 
diate objects of thought, and of consciousness in general, 
only when Descartes and his followers thus employed it. 
"Dr. Brown," he continues, "only fails in illustrating 
against Eeid the various meanings in which the old writers 
employed the term idea, by the little fact that the old 
writers never em,ployed the term idea at all." Having dis- 
posed thus of Brown's statements respecting the use of the 
term by ancient authors, Hamilton proceeds to show that 
he is equally incorrect in his statements respecting its use 
by modern writers, especially by those whom Eeid has cited 
and criticised. Brown denies that they do use the term 
idea in the sense Eeid attributes to them. Hamilton takes 
up those authors one by one, Descartes, Arnauld, Locke, 
etc., and shows that they do each and all employ the word 
idea, either as distinct from or identical with the act of the 
mind itself, to denote the immediate object of thought, 
representative of external objects, and that so far from their 
doctrine being identical with that of Eeid, as Brown has 
asserted, it is directly at variance with and fundamentally 
opposite to it. 

While Hamilton, however, would concede to our author 
the full merit of overthrowing the theory of ideas then 
current, he admits, and justly as we think, the existence 
of certain inconsistencies and defects which mar the 
symmetry and completeness of his system. It was an error 
to make consciousness, as he does, a distinct faculty of the 
mind, since it is implied in every mental operation and is 
essential to every faculty, and cannot therefore be itself a 
faculty, coordinate with memory, imagination, etc. It 
was an error in him to restrict the sphere of consciousness, 
as he does, solely to the operations of the mind, exclusive 



330 THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 

of their objects — to perception, e. g. and not to the object 
perceived — to memory, but not to the object remembered — 
since, as Hamilton shows, we cannot be conscious of an 
act of knowledge, without being conscious of its object — 
cannot be conscious, e.g. of the perception of a rose — i.e. 
cannot Icnow that we have said perception and of said object 
and no other, unless we know also the object itself, that it 
is, and what it is ; so that virtually our consciousness and 
our perception are one and not to be psychologically though 
they may be logically distinguished. He errs, also, in 
making memory to be an immediate knowledge of the fact, 
which is impossible, since that only is known immediately 
which is known in itself and as it is, but the past can be 
known only as it luas, not as it is. Memory, therefore, 
like imagination, is a representative faculty. 

Eeid's acquaintance with the history of philosophy 
seems to have been very imperfect. This even his warmest 
friends and admirers cordially admit. In consequence his 
historical sketches are the least valuable and reliable por- 
tion of his works ; he not seldom mistakes the real opinions 
and doctrines of other authors, at least as regards the nicer 
points of distinction. This is particularly true in his his- 
torical sketch of the doctrine of perception, in which he 
fails to distinguish between the views of those who, with 
Leibnitz, Arnauld, Malebranche and the later Germans, 
regard ideas as mere modifications of the mind itself, and 
those who held the cruder doctrine of ideas as something 
distinct from the percipient mind. And this leads me to 
notice what must be regarded as the most serious defect in 
Reid's system. He nowhere draws with sufl&cient clearness, 
definiteness and precision the dividing line between the 
true and false doctrines of perception — between the high 
and only tenable position of natural realism, and the prior 
form of idealism, egoistical representationism, which, while 
it has nothing to do with ideas as i?nages, still holds tliat 
ideas m the modern sense, as notions or conceptions, states 



THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 331 

of the mind, are the immediate and sole objects of our 
knowledge. This distinction did not probably occur to 
him. Nay, it is even a matter of some doubt whether he 
were not himself of the latter class — an egoistical repre- 
sentationist ; though we think Hamilton has shown that 
the drift and general tenor of his system proves the con- 
trary. Still it can be made out only by inference. He 
nowhere clearly and fully defines his position as to this 
point, and it is a fundamental one in his system. He 
nowhere says directly and explicitly, that we do in percep- 
tion know immediately aught beyond our own mental 
states and operations. The passage from the subjective to 
the objective is not clearly pointed out anywhere in his 
works. This is unfortunate. In a system designed to 
rebut idealism it is absolutely essential that the opposite 
doctrine of realism should be sharply and clearly defined 
and freed from all confusion and ambiguity. It matters 
little, as Morell and Hamilton have clearly shown, whether 
in Eeid's sense of the term, one regard the idea as an image 
of external things, a representation floating before the mind, 
but not of it, or whether we regard it as merely a modifica- 
tion of the mind itself ; so long as this idea, in either case, 
is all that we perceive and know. What evidence have we 
of anything external to correspond to this idea in the mind ? 
not the least ; we concede to idealism all it asks. The 
main hold of that system, its strong and impregnable fort- 
ress, is just this position — all our knowledge is subjective, 
that the ego has no immediate knowledge of the non-ego as 
existing, but knows it only as represented to the ego — only 
as a modification of the self-conscious ego. We have no 
knowledge of anything out of our own consciousness, no 
cognizance of any really objective reality ; we know, are con- 
scious of certain modes or affections of our own minds, cer- 
tain mental phenomena, and that is all. The supposition of 
a really existing external world to produce these mental 
phenomena in us, is purely gratuitous unless it can be 



332 THE SCOTCH PHILOSOPHY. 

shown that they can be produced in no other way — and this 
cannot be shown — nay, it is evident that in many cases our 
mental impressions are produced in other ways, self -pro- 
duced as in dreams, delirium, etc. 

The only way to meet this is to take the high ground 
of natural realism, that our knowledge is not wholly sub- 
jective, that in perception we are cognizant not merely of 
our own mental phenomena or the modification of our 
own minds, but also, and that immediately, of the phenom- 
ena of matter in relation to our minds as percipient — that 
there is a duality known and recognized in every act of 
perception, that every act of perception involves, as has been 
said, the union of the subjective and the objective. This 
is the only answer to the idealism of Hume, Berkeley, et 
id omne genus, and we are confident it is the only true 
statement of the facts in the case. It is certainly to be 
regretted that Reid, in laying the foundation of a new 
school of philosophy, should not have placed it fully and 
fairly and firmly upon this immovable rock of truth. 

I cannot better close this discussion than by citing the 
words of Morell, who has well stated the case. **The 
position that we must assume, if we would complete what 
Reid so nobly commenced, is that the very essence of per- 
! ception consists in a felt relation between mind and mat- 

ter ; that, instead of being wholly the act of the mind, it is 
the union of the subjective and the objective necessarily 
arising from - Mian's constitution as a being composed of 
soul and body. If you look to the acts of the will, you 
ll li feel them to be purely personal or subjective ; if you look 

'" to an act of the reason, you feel that it refers simply to 

abstract truth, which the mind of itself could work out ; 
but if you analyze a perception, you at once detect in it 
another element, which does not depend upon the will or 
the reaso7i, but upon some other existence out of and 
distinct from ourselves ; so that perception, instead of 
being an operation of the mind, as Reid regarded it, is in 



S'V CCESSORS OF REID. 333 

fact an intuitive, felt relation between self and nature, 
between the me and the 7iof me. The one of these related 
terms is, in truth, as much given in every act of percep- 
tion as the other, neither can we abstract either the sub- 
ject or the object without destroying the very essence of 
the thing itself." (Hist. Phil. pp. 185, 186.) 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE SUCCESSORS OF REID. 

§ 1.— DuaALD Stewart. 

Mr. Stewart was the son of Dr. Mathew Stewart, pro- 
fessor of mathematics in the University of Edinburgh. 
Hence the allusion of Burns when he speaks of the "phil- 
osophic sire and son." Born 1753. He received his edu- 
cation at the University, to which he was admitted at the 
age of thirteen. There he enjoyed the tuition of Drs. Blair 
and Ferguson. He also heard the lectures of Dr. Keid at 
Glasgow. At the age of eighteen such was his progress, 
that he was associated with his father as assistant lecturer 
on mathematics, which place he filled until the death of the 
latter. In 1783 he visited the continent in company with 
the Marquis of Lothian. When Dr. Ferguson went to 
North America as secretary to the commissioners sent to 
conclude a peace with this country, Mr. Stewart during his 
absence occupied the chair of Moral Philosophy, and on the 
resignation of Dr. Ferguson he was appointed to fill the 
vacancy, a chair which he was destined to adorn for a 
quarter of a century with more than common reputation 
and brilliancy. His Elements of the Philosophy of the 
Human Mind was published in 1792, followed by Outlines 
of Moral Philosophy for the use of students, in 1793. He 
also published an account of the life and writings of Dr. 



334 SUCCESSORS OF REID. 

Adam Smithy, of Dr. Keid, and of Dr. Robertson. In 1810, 
l^e was induced by delicate health, and a desire to devote 
himself entirely to study and the preparation of his works, 
to resign his office and retire from the labors of public 
instruction. He found a retreat at Kinneil house, about 
twenty miles from Edinburgh, where he continued till his 
death, June 11, 1828. The fruits of this leisure were the 
volume of Philosophical Essays, (1810), the Dissertation on 
the Progress of Metaphysical and Ethical Philosophy pre- 
fixed to the Encyclopedia Britannica, a truly elegant piece 
of philosophic writing, a second volume of the Philosophy 
of the Human Mind, 1813, with a continuation in 1827, 
and his work on the Philosophy of the Active and Moral 
Powers, 2 vols. 8vo., 1828, a work almost posthumous, and 
composed under circumstances which impart to it the 
deepest interest, as being the finale of a long and brilliant 
literary life. He died at the age of seventy-five. 

It is hardly necessary for me to say that he adopted in 
the main the system of Reid, introducing such modifica- 
tions as seemed needed to render the system more complete, 
and substituting, in some cases, a more appropriate phrase- 
ology, polishing and finishing with the skillful eye and 
hand of a critic, what the master had left in the rough, but 
neither adding to nor departing from the philosophy of 
that master in anything essential. In erudition and 
acquaintance with the history of philosophy, especially, he 
was far superior to Reid ; in profoundness and originality 
of mind, he was perhaps inferior to the latter. He is not 
so much the inventor as the elaborator of a system, not so 
much a philosopher as an ingenious, erudite and elegant 
critic on philosophy. Yet his improvements are by no 
means to be overlooked. His substitution of the terms, 
fundamental laws of tliought, in place of the inadequate 
and unfortunate expressions of Reid — common sense and 
instinct — is in itself of the highest service to that system, 
and goes far to remove many of the objections brought 



SUCCESSORS OF REID. 335 

against it. Nor did he perform a slight service to philos- 
ophy in elevating the power of attention to the rank of a 
distinct and coordinate faculty of the mind, and especially 
in developing, with a wise and masterly skill, the law of 
association in its relation to the various operations of the 
mind, and to the practical offices of life. The system as it 
came from his hand, possessed not only more symmetry 
and completeness, and a more scientific exactness, than 
Reid had given it, but withal a nice application to the 
manifold phases and movements of the mind as seen in 
action and developed in art — of man as in society ; it was 
the philosophy not of mind in the abstract, but of the liv- 
ing, stirring world. A fine illustration of this occurs in the 
chapter on Association as applied to various fine arts, and 
especially as illustrative of the phenomena of reasoning, 
a peculiarly finished and nice specimen of the critical and 
elegant in philosophy. 

No one has done better justice to Mr. Stewart's general 
merits as a philosopher, or formed, on the whole, a more 
correct estimate of his character and worth, than Mr. 
Mackintosh in his History of Ethical Philosophy. " Per- 
haps few men ever lived," says that accomplished author, 
'^who poured into the breasts of youth a more fervid and 
yet reasonable love of liberty, of truth, and of virtue. 
How many are still alive, in different countries, and in 
every rank to which education reaches, who, if they ac- 
curately examined their own minds and lives, would ascribe 
much of whatever goodness and happiness they possess, to 
the early impressions of his gentle and persuasive eloquence ! 
He lived to see his disciples distinguished among the lights 
and ornaments of the council and the senate. He had the 
consolation to be sure that no words of his promoted the 
growth of an impure taste, of an exclusive prejudice, of a 
malevolent passion. Without derogating from his writ- 
ings, it may be said that his disciples were among his best 
works." As to the qualities of his style the same author 



336 SUCCESSORS OF REID. 

remarks, ^^ Probably no modern ever exceeded him in that 
species of eloquence which springs from sensibility to 
literary beauty and moral excellence ; which neither ob- 
scures science by prodigal ornament, nor disturbs the 
serenity of patient attention ; but, though it rather calms 
and soothes the feelings, yet exalts the genius, and insensi- 
bly inspires a reasonable enthusiasm for whatever is good 
and fair. '' " Few writers rise with more grace from a plain 
groundwork, to the passages which require greater anima- 
tion or embellishment. . . . Among the secret arts by 
which he diffuses elegance over his diction, may be re- 
marked the skill, which, by deepening or brightening a 
shade in a secondary term, by opening partial or prepara- 
tory glimpses of a thought to be afterwards unfolded 
unobservedly, heightens the import of a word, and gives it 
a new meaning without any offense against old use." A 
peculiar susceptibility and delicacy of touch produced 
forms of expression in themselves extremely beautiful, but 
of which the habitual use is not easily reconcilable with 
the condensation desirable in works necessarily so exten- 
sive. If, however, it must be owned that the caution 
incident to his temper, his feelings, his philosophy, and his 
station, has somewhat lengthened his composition, it is not 
less true, that some of the same circumstances have con- 
tributed towards those peculiar beauties which place him 
at the head of the most adorned writers on philosophy in 
our language." . . . ^*His writings are a proof that the 
mild sentiments have their eloquence as well as the vehe- 
ment passions. It would be difficult to name works in 
which so much refined philosophy is joined with so fine a 
fancy, so much elegant literature with such a delicate per- 
ception of the distinguishing excellencies of great writers, 
and with an estimate, in general so just, of the services 
rendered to knowledge by a succession of philosophers. 
They are pervaded by a philosophic benevolence, which 
keeps up the ardor of his genius without disturbing the 



SUCCESSORS OF REID. 337 

serenity of his mind, — which is felt in his reyerence for 
knowledge, in the generosity of his praise, and in the ten- 
derness of his censure. . . . Those readers are not to be 
envied, who limit their admiration to particular parts, or 
to excellencies merely literary, without being warmed by 
the glow of that honest triumph in the advancement of 
knowledge, and of that assured faith in the final prevalence 
of truth and justice, which breathe through every page of 
them, and give the unity and dignity of a moral purpose 
to the whole of those classical works." 

I cannot close this brief notice of an author to whom 
personally I am so deeply indebted without mentioning 
one other trait conspicuous in his writings. I refer to the 
peculiar modesty and caution with which he differs at any 
time from writers of established authority, and especially 
from Dr. Eeid. It has been well said that he " employed 
more skill in concealing his very important reforms of 
Reid's doctrines, than others exert to maintain their claims 
to originality." In this respect his writings form a 
marked contrast as it seems to me with those of his not less 
distinguished successor, who seems to glory in nothing 
more than in casting off allegiance to the authority of his 
predecessors. 

Addenda. 

The following is the only notice I have been able to 
find of the closing years of Mr. Stewart's life. It is from 
the same pen to which I am indebted for the preceding 
observations. 

After remarking that the Dissertations on the Progress 
of Philosophy, Mr. Stewart's latest works, are the most 
highly ornamented of any of his productions, a fact which 
is to be accounted for in part from the nature of the sub- 
ject, the writer proceeds to observe : " But the memorable 
instances of Cicero, of Milton, and still more those of 
Dryden and Burke, seem to show that there is some natu- 
15 



338 SUCCESSOES OF REID. 

ral tendency in the fire of genius to burn more brightly, or 
to blaze more fiercely in the evening than in the morning 
of human life. Probably the materials which long experi- 
ence supplies to the imagination, the boldness with which 
a more established reputation arms the mind, and the 
silence of the low but formidable rivals of the higher prin- 
ciples, may concur in producing this unexpected and 
little observed effect. 

It was in the last years of his life, when suffering 
under the effects of a severe attack of palsy, with which 
he had been afflicted in 1822, that Mr. Stewart most 
plentifully reaped the fruits of long virtue, and a well 
ordered mind. Happily for him, his own cultivation and 
exercise of every kindly affection, had laid up for him a 
store of that domestic consolation, which none who deserve 
it ever want, and for the loss of which nothing beyond the 
threshold can make amends. The same philosophy which 
he had cultivated from his youth upward employed his 
dying hand. Aspirations after higher and brighter scenes 
of excellence, always blended with his elevated morality, 
became more earnest and deeper as worldly passions 
died away, and earthly objects vanished from his sight." 

§ Dr. Thomas Brown. 

The system of philosophy commonly known as the 
Scotch Metaphysics, as blocked out by Reid, matured and 
completed by Stewart, received a very serious modification, 
if not indeed a complete subversion, at the hands of Mr. 
Stewart's immediate successor, Dr. Thomas Brown. Of 
the personal history of this distinguished metaphysician, 
neither the limits of this lecture, nor the materials at my 
command, enable me to say much. He was born in 1728, 
and like Dr. Reid, was descended from one of those ministers 
in the Scottish church which, in the language of another, 
" after a generation or two of an humble life spent in piety 
and usefulness, with no more than needful knowledge, have 



SUCCESSORS OF REID. 339 

more than once sent forth a man of genius from their cool 
and quiet shade, to make his fellows wiser or better, by 
tongue or pen, by head or hand. " Like Mr. Stewart, he 
was educated first at the High School, and afterwards at 
the University of Edinburgh, in which he subsequently 
became professor of Moral Philosophy. While yet in his 
19th year he distinguished himself by an acute and able 
review of Dr. Darwin's Zoonomia. This publication intro- 
duced him to the notice of some of the most distinguished 
men of the time, and at the age of 19 he was associated 
with a number of them in the formation of the Edinburgh 
Academy of Physics. Erskine, Brougham, Lord Seymour, 
Mackenzie, Jeffrey, and others, were of this number, and 
from this association originated the Edinburgh Review. 
Dr. Brown wrote for this Review the article on the Philoso- 
phy of Kant in the second number, but taking umbrage at 
some liberties which were taken with a subsequent paper, 
he withdrew entirely his connection with the work. 

Dr. Brown figured somewhat as a poet, though not, it 
would seem, with any great success. His poetry is of that 
metaphysical sort, which comparatively few readers appre- 
ciate or enjoy, and which is by no means the highest order 
of poetry. He looked upon nature and upon man too 
much with the eye of a philosopher intent upon discover- 
ing the true relations of things and their moral bearings, 
just as he looked upon philosophy too much with the eye 
of a poet, intent upon discovering beauties where only nice 
discrimination of truth should be the object. It may be 
said of him without injustice, that his philosophy spoiled 
his poetry, and the latter avenged itself by spoiling, in 
turn, his philosophy. His principal poetical work was the 
Paradise of Coquettes, London, 1814. The prose of Dr. 
Brown is certainly as unphilosophical, as his poetry is un- 
poetical. In the somewhat severe but just language of one 
who was himself both a philosopher and a personal friend 
of Brown, " It is brilliant to excess. It must not be 



340 SUCCESSOES OF EEID. 

denied that its beauty is sometimes womanly, that it too 
often melts down precision into elegance, that it buries its 
main idea under a load of illustration, of which every part 
is expanded and adorned with such a visible labor as to 
withdraw the mind from attention to the thoughts which it 
professes to introduce more easily into the understanding. 
It is darkened by excessive brightness ; it loses ease and 
liveliness by overdress, — and in the midst of its luscious 
sweetness we wish for the striking and homely illustra- 
tions of Tucker, and for the pithy and sinewy sense of 
Paley, either of whom by a single short metaphor from a 
familiar, perhaps a low object, could at one blow set the 
two worlds of reason and force in movement." 

These very qualities, however, contributed not a lit- 
tle doubtless to the success of his lectures on their first 
delivery. Brilliant, adorned with every grace and orna- 
ment of style and fancy, sparkling with imagery, sufficiently 
original to wear the air of novelty, bold and daring even to 
a fault in differing from established authority, analytic 
withal in a very high degree, yet clothing the most 
abstract speculations in popular language and even poeti- 
cal diction, the lectures of Dr. Brown drew large and 
admiring audiences, and attracted general attention. They 
were the result, however, not of careful and mature thought 
and long study, but of a brilliant and original genius trust- 
ing to its own powers of invention and analysis. They 
were generally written the night previous to their delivery, 
and of necessity were as hasty and superficial as they were 
brilliant and popular. Had he lived to prepare them for 
the press he would probably have divested them somewhat 
of the popular and declamatory style and clothed in a garb 
more fitting the chaste and sober genius of philosophy. 

The personal character of Dr. Brown is peculiarly 
attractive. Mackintosh speaks of him "as an example of 
one in whom the utmost tenderness of affection and the 
indulgence of a flowery fancy were not repressed by the 



SUCCESSOES OF REID. 341 

highest cultivation, and by a perhaps excessive refinement 
of intellect. His mind soared and roamed through every 
region of philosophy and poetry, but his untravelled heart 
clung to the hearth of his father, to the children who 
shared it with him, and after them first to other partners 
of his childish sports and then almost solely to those com- 
panions of his youthful studies who continued to be the 
friends of his life. Speculation seemed to keep his kind- 
ness at home. It is observable that, though sparkling 
with fancy, he does not seem to have been deeply or 
durably touched by those affections which are lighted at its 
torch, or at least tinged with its colors. His heart sought 
little abroad, but contently dwelt in his family and in his 
study. He was one of those men of genius who repaid the 
tender care of a mother by roching the cradle of her re- 
posing age.^' 

He died April 2d, 1820, at the age of 42. Of the 
philosophy of Dr. Brown we have already had occasion to 
speak in discussing that of Eeid ; especially of the injus- 
tice which he does the latter in respect to the merit of 
overthrowing the established and long current theory of 
ideas ; and also of the historical inaccuracies with which 
he abounds. The most serious defect of his system is, 
perhaps, the doctrine which he saw fit to advocate in 
regard to perception. The very point on which he claims 
to be at one with Eeid, is the very one in which he differs 
most essentially and entirely from him. So far is he from 
understanding either the history of the doctrine, or Reid's 
position with regard to it, or in fact, his own. Brown is, 
with regard to perception, what Hamilton would call a 
representationist of the egoistical order. The object im- 
mediately perceived is, with him, not any external thing, 
but a mode or modification of the mind itself. Eeid, as 
we have seen, is a natural realist, the thing directly 
perceived is, with him, not the mind itself, not any idea 
in the mind or out of it. but the really existing external 



342 SUCCESSOES OF EEID. 

object. Brown misunderstands his entire doctrine on this 
subject and supposes him to be, like himself, a representa- 
tionist. In taking this position, Brown throws the entire 
philosophy of the Scotch school a step backwards, — out of 
order into confusion, out of progress into retreat. The 
shadow moves a degree backward on the dial the moment 
that step is taken. The door is thrown open again to 
idealism and scepticism, and the philosophy of Dr. Brown 
is utterly powerless to meet these advancing foes. This so 
far as regards merely our belief in external realities, may 
not be of so much consequence, for that belief is too firm 
to be shaken by any theory or speculation. But the mis- 
chief wrought is chiefly in another quarter. The repre- 
sentation theory contradicts the universal consciousness of 
mankind, and if that be affirmed false in one instance it 
cannot, as Hamilton has well shown, be relied on in other 
cases. All certainty, all confidence in its testimony is 
destroyed, and what becomes of the validity of human 
knowledge of any kind and in any case ? See Hamilton's 
argument against Brown. 

The general system adopted by Brown may best be seen 
in his classification of the mental powers. He divides 
mental phenomena into external and internal states ; in- 
cluding under the former the various sensations ; under 
the latter, intellectual states, which are all reduced to 
simple and relative suggestion, and emotions, which com- 
prise the passions and desires. The will has no place among 
these faculties. There are in fact no faculties, but merely 
states of the mind. The mind exists now in the state of 
memory, now in that of imagination, etc., just as moist- 
ure exists, now in the state of vapor, now of water, now of 
ice or snow. The laws by which it passes from one of 
these states to the other, are in either case fixed and 
positive, and may be, to some extent at least, definitely 
ascertained, and the mental, as truly as the physical 
phenomena, are the definite and certain results of those 



SUCCESSOKS OF REID. 343 

laws. Activity, operation, poiuer, faculty, are terms not 
known to this system as designations of mental phenomena. 
The native spontaneity, the inherent activity of mind, its 
first chief distinguishing characteristic, in distinction from 
mere organized and animate or inanimate matter, is 
altogether overlooked. Psychology becomes merely the 
physiology of mind, — a system of mental mechanics. 
Against this cardinal feature of Brown's system we protest 
with all earnestness, as a cardinal error and blunder. 
The mind is not a series of states, but a living conscious 
unity, possessing an inherent activity of its own, possessing 
by its nature and constitution certain poiuer s, putting forth 
those powers as it will, now this — now that — but always 
acting, operating, continually ; and to speak of the mind 
thus constituted as existing merely in certain states, is not 
simply ridiculous, it is one of the grossest libels upon 
psychology, — it is to give the play of Hamlet with tiie 
character of Hamlet left out, — it is to stumble over the 
very threshold of the science and sprawl at full length on 
the first pavements. Mental physiology — mental me- 
chanics. Procul ! procul ! 

We object still farther to the peculiar phraseology of 
Brown. The states of mind are part iuternal, part ex- 
ternal. But what are we to understand by an external 
state of mind ! Was ever a greater absurdity of language 
perpetrated in all Ireland? Paul assures us that at one 
time he knew not whether he was in the body or out of it, 
but Dr. Brown seems to be in the same quandary as to the 
condition of the human mind generally. It is liable to 
exist at any time in an external state. But, overlooking 
the absurdity of the language, the principle of classifica- 
tion here involved is not the true one. The question of 
importance to be answered is not what is the origin of 
these so called mental states, as Morell very justly insists, 
but what are they in themselves. Nor is the principle 
self-consistent even were it admissible ; for some of the 



344 SUCCESSOES OF REID. 

internal states, so called, are really of external origin. 
The whole thing is, in fact, from beginning to end, a 
tissue and concatenation of blunders. 

Not much better is the attempt to reduce all mental 
operations and faculties to the category of single and 7'ela- 
tive suggestion. What is to be gained by this ? Are not 
these several operations and faculties of operation really 
distinct ? Are they not essential to the mind ? known by 
well defined names from time immemorial ? Why disturb 
this accustomed nomenclature ? I have now and had from 
birth a faculty of memory, of conception, of imagination, 
of judgment, of taste, etc. Why strip me of these, and 
send me out into the world, like the plucked chicken of 
the ancient philosopher, hvo-legged and featherless — a man 
with only two capacities ; single and relative suggestion, and 
no faculty at all. What is the gain to philosophy or to the 
individual in particular, by any such process. It is not 
true moreover that all the mental powers may be thus 
comprised under the one general faculty, a law of sugges- 
tion — a law which, in Dr. Brown's view, plays the same part 
in the mental that gravitation does in the physical world. 
Matter gravitates ; mind . . receives suggestions. We 
would beg leave in this connection to suggest that this is 
not altogether a satisfactory view of the human mind. It 
remains only to notice briefly two other points in this 
system of philosophy. Brown's theory of cause and effect 
and his theory of morals. As to the first, he virtually 
denies the existence of power other than that of the Deity, 
as an existing objective or subjective reality, manifesting 
itself as cause in the production of changes or effects. 
There are for him no efficient causes in nature, only imme- 
diate, invariable antecedence. Nor does he recognize 
power or cause in the mind itself as the efficient, voluntary 
producer of its own acts. Overlooking our own personal 
consciousness of voluntary power, effort, sensation, — the 
source of all our ideas of power or cause in nature, he fails 



SUCCESSOKS OF REID. 345 

of course to perceive in tlie material world anything of the 
sort, and so reduces all phenomena both mental and mate- 
rial to mere succession of eyents, connected indeed and 
uniform in their procedure, but of which no one is, or 
contains in itself, the cause or reason why another occurs. 
It is this idea of causation or rather the entire absence of 
causation which gives that peculiar hue and coloring 
which we have already noticed to Brown's whole theory of 
mind. He sees in the mind a mere passive receptivity of 
suggestions, a passive entity existing in certain ever chang- 
ing states dependent for the quality and character of those 
states upon influences and impressions from without, and 
the established laws of consciousness within. The mind as 
a power, as possessing faculties, and exerting them at its 
own sweet will, he does not recognize, has never formed the 
idea of such a thing. Hence it is that the will has no 
place in his system. It is merely a modification of 
desire. 

As to ethics, a word will suffice. Brown nowhere dis- 
cusses the great problem of liberty and necessity. There 
was perhaps, with such a theory of mind as we have now 
described, very little occasion for him to take up those intri- 
cate and deep questions. They were in part already settled 
by the very basis of his theory. Everything goes according 
to fixed laws — no spontaneity, no activity, no will — of course 
no occasion for liberty. Such, as it would seem, would be 
the almost inevitable conclusion — certainly the only con- 
sistent one from such a psychology — or system of mental 
mechanics. 

His theory of virtue is analogous to that of cause 
and effect ; certain actions are followed by certain emotions 
in us, the one the antecedent, the other the consequent ; 
that is all we know or can know of the matter. To inquire 
for the cause of the emotions which thus arise, or seek any 
adaptation in the action to produce the consequent emotion 
is idle, just as it is in nature to inquire for a cause of the 
15* 



346 SUCCESSORS OF REID. 

observed connection of events. Gravitation is the name we 
give to this relation of events in the physical world. So 
in the moral world we call the relation of actions and emo- 
tions by a general name — virtue — a mere name for an 
unknown thing, an abstraction. We are not to ask, then, 
what is the ground of virtuous emotion, why we approve 
or disapprove certain actions ; there is no ground, at least 
that can be known to us — nothing in the nature of human 
action in itself considered, why one emotion should follow 
rather than another. Were the emotions then to be reversed, 
were we to approve what now we disapprove, and vice versa, 
no reason could be shown why that would not be just as 
well as the present arrangement, nay, why virtue and vice 
would not just change places. To such a pass do we come 
when once we lose sight of the element of human freedom 
as the basis of human responsibility, and the foundation of 
human conscience. 

I have spoken in somewhat severe terms of this entire 
system, because I regard it as on the whole most radically 
defective and unsound, and from the very genius of its 
author and the attractive dress in which it is clothed, all 
the more specious and dangerous. It is all the more to be 
condemned as being a move backward from a far better 
and nobler system, against which it sets itself in open revolt. 
I would by no means deny the originality and genius of 
its author's mind, nor his power of analysis, which is every- 
where manifest. Of his personal character and worth, I have 
already spoken ; so true is it, as a profound moralist has 
remarked, that men are always better or worse than their 
speculative opinions. 



THE GERMAK PHILOSOPHY. 347 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE GERMA]Sr PHILOSOPHY. — IMMANUEL KAlifT. 

While Eeid was laying the foundations of a true phi- 
losophy in Britain, and setting himself to stem the prevail- 
ing torrent of scepticism, a greater than Eeid was devoting 
himself to the same work, and with the same design, in 
another land. They were contemporary writers, in some 
respects of kindred spirit, animated by a common desire, 
laboring for a common end. Both gave their lives to the 
great work of elaborating a system of philosophy that 
should prove an effectual barrier to the inroads of that 
scepticism which both saw and felt to be most formidable, 
not to philosophy alone, but to all truth and all sound prin- 
ciples of morality. Both were men of genius and power. 
Each knew little of the life and writings of the other. It 
was the writings of David Hume that first aroused both to 
undertake the work to which each devoted his life. But 
though animated by the same impulse, they moved in alto- 
gether independent courses. The manner in which Reid 
accomplished his design we have already noticed. I 
remains to inquire into the philosophy of his great contem- 
porary, Immanuel Kant. 

This distinguished man, second in fame as a philosopher 
to no other, certainly in modern times, was born in Kon- 
igsberg, Prussia, April 22, 1724. He was the son of poor 
but honest and respectable parents ; his father a harness- 
maker ; his mother a woman of marked character, strictly 
religious and not wanting in native strength of mind. 
She took her boy early into the fields and taught him the 
names of the flowers that grew by the wayside and along 
the meadows, and awakened in him the love of nature and 
the beautiful. The boy grew up and in course of time, 



348 THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 

having received his first education at a charity school in 
the suburbs, was sent in 1732, then only eight years old, by 
much sacrifice and exertion of the parents, to the college at 
Konigsberg, named after Frederic, and in 1740, then six- 
teen, to the University. The mother and the son now 
walked forth as before into the fields, — she now to question 
and he to teach. For his mother he ever retained, as every 
truly great and noble man has ever done, the tenderest 
affection. Both his parents, however, were removed by 
death soon after he reached the age of manhood. His 
application to study at the college and university was unre- 
mitting, and his proficiency great. He devoted himself 
chiefly to philological studies at first, together with Physics 
and Mathematics, which were his favorite studies and recre- 
ation in subsequent life. At the university he studied 
theology as a profession, intending to devote himself to it 
as a means of livelihood, but seems never to have formed 
any special taste therefor. He was quite too fond of sci- 
ence and philosophy to devote himself to either of the 
practical professions as the business of life. Coleridge, the 
English disciple of Kant, had in early life a similar desti- 
nation and went so far as actually to preach on a few occa- 
sions, once certainly on the corn-laws, not altogether a gos- 
pel sermon probably. Whether Kant did likewise we are not 
informed, but he somewhere speaks of having, as a candidate 
for theology, written a sermon on reconciliation with ene- 
mies from the words '' agree with thine adversary quickly," 
etc., which however, he had never had occasion to deliver. 
Very early, however, must he have acquired a fondness for 
philosophical investigation, since we find him at the age of 
twenty-two assailing vigorously the systems of Leibnitz 
and Wolff and using the weapons of dialectic skill with 
no little effect against the most eminent authorities of the 
age in metaphysical science. Obliged to depend upon his 
own resources, he spent some years in retirement as private 
tutor in several families, where he devoted mucli time to 



THE GERMAN PHILOSOniY. 349 

reading, and marked out the plan of several of the phil- 
osophical treatises which he subsequently published. In 
1755, after ten or twelve years thus employed, he returned 
to Konigsberg, took the degree of A. M., and soon after 
published his celebrated work the Theory ot the Heavens, 
or the constitution and mechanical structure of the Grlobe, 
according to the Newtonian system. This was a work of 
no little originality and merit, and in it he anticipates 
more than one of the subsequent discoveries of Herschel, 
as that astronomer afterwards admitted, particularly the 
existence of the planet Uranus. Kant now began to lecture 
as Doctor Docens on a wide range of subjects — natural law, 
metaphysics, mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, moral 
philosophy, natural theology, etc. He became popular 
with the students, but was not appointed a professor until 
after some fifteen years of patient toil and waiting. At 
length in 1770 the honor so long and richly merited was 
conferred on him. His publications did not attract much 
attention at first. The Critique of Pure Reason, his master 
work, lay six years almost unnoticed, and the publisher 
was on the point of destroying the unsold edition, when 
suddenly the demand increased, the value of the work be- 
came known, successive editions were quickly disposed of, 
and all Germany became animate with the discussion of 
the new philosophy. It was stoutly and learnedly assailed, 
as vigorously and ably defended by its friends and disci- 
ples ; the thinking mind of Germany ranged itself on either 
side, for and against the new system. Gradually it pre- 
vailed over all obstacles. Almost every chair in tlie Ger- 
man universities was filled by a Kantist. The work was 
the study of twelve years, but was written in five months. 
Hence its defects of style, its carelessness, looseness, want 
of clearness, sometimes of consistency. It is such a 
work as none but a German could ever write, and no liter- 
ary community but a German would ever tolerate. In spite 
of its defects of style, however, it has exerted a more power- 



350 THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 

ful influence on the educated and thinking mind of Europe 
than probably any other book of the kind ever written. 

The fame of Kant was now fully established. Erom all 
the countries of Europe men came to see and speak with 
the great German. One man, himself a professor, an- 
nounced himself at the study door, as having travelled 160 
miles to speak with Kant. Advantageous proposals from 
other universities were made to him, but Kant remained 
faithful to the home of his early life and labors. Indeed, 
with the exception of his private tutorship at Arensdorf, 32 
miles distant, he never once quitted Konigsberg, it is said, 
during his whole life. His habits were extremely simple. 
He had no ambition for display and the attentions of a 
crowd, — sought retirement, — lived alone, attended only by 
a faithful old soldier in the capacity of body servant, — in 
a retired house, — the domestic arrangements of which were 
all entrusted to his servant and his cook. There he passed 
his hours, days, years, till an advanced old age, content 
with his own best thoughts and best society. Eeichardt 
describes him as a lean, small man — '* leaner, nay, drier, 
none probably ever existed." A high, calm forehead, 
tranquil and lofty as the seat of high thought, a well-formed 
nose, and clear bright eyes of serene depth, gave his coun- 
tenance a marked expression. Though loving retirement 
he was yet fond of society, and never dined without one or 
two invited guests. Dinner was a social and cheerful meal, 
in which he gave himself up to conversation, merriment, 
good cheer, good living. His habits were quite as regular 
and punctual as those of the town clock, which seemed 
rather to regulate its movement by his, than his by its. 
At five minutes before five, summer and winter, weather 
what it pleased, the old soldier walked with military pre- 
cision into his master's bed-room, exclaimed with a bow, 
*^Sir, it is time !" and immediately withdrew. Just five 
minutes after, the philosopher invariably sat down to a cup 
of tea, scarcely more, for breakfast. He now marked out 



THE GERMANS" PHILOSOPHY. 351 

with the precision of an astronomical diagram, his occupa- 
tions for the day, and immediately entered upon them. 
At seven he sallied forth for lecture, frequently giving suc- 
cessive lectures at short intervals, through a considerable 
part of the morning. His lectures were full of illustration 
— given mostly without reference to his notes, from mem- 
ory. After that he gave himself up to study till, at a quar- 
ter before one, the old soldier opened the door and 
announced that 12f had struck. Whatever else might be 
on hand at the moment, Kant was on hand also, — made 
his toilet with care — and appeared precisely at one, neatly 
dressed, and with a cordial greeting for his invited guests. 
At no other time did he see visitors. After dinner, which 
occupied some two hours or more, he always, and in all 
weathers, took his promenade of an hour, alone, or attended 
only by his servant, — spent the remaining afternoon in 
light reading, — which comprehended almost everything in 
almost every department of literature — ^but especially poli- 
tics and books of travel. At six o'clock, without supper, 
he addressed himself to the studies of the evening, retiring 
at ten. Fifteen minutes before retiring, he broke off all 
thought and occupation that might disturb his repose, and 
immediately fell asleep on touching his pillow. Thus he 
lived till extreme old age gradually wore out his powers of 
labor and endurance, and he sank to his final sleep Feb- 
ruary 12th, 1804, eighty years of age. His faculties grad- 
ually wasted with his wasting form. His memory first, — 
his sight followed, — he became gradually unconscious of 
surrounding objects, and yet life still lingered at the cit- 
adel, as loth to deprive the world of one who had so well 
adorned and served it. After his decease, his remains were 
visited by immense multitudes, thronging the house for 
days, and his funeral solemnities were attended as few 
kings have been attended on their march to the sepulchre. 
All Germany conspired to do him honor. It would have 
been gratifying to have heard from the lips of so great a 



352 THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 

man, as he approached the grave, some avowal of a personal 
Christian faith. Alas ! he was a philosopher, rather than 
a Christian. When asked in his closing life to what he 
looked forward in the future, he professed an entire igno- 
rance of what might hereafter await him. The wasting 
energies of life filled him with sad regrets. Weary and 
sick of existence, which was to him full of pain and misery, 
he drew no consolation from the hopes of the future and of 
immortality, which revelation holds out to man. He was 
ready enough to die, and would gladly depart, but the 
ground of this readiness was the uselessness and misery of 
further existence, and the ground of his confidence was 
that he had never consciously injured any one. A sad 
death for a Christian philosopher of the 19th century. 
That of Socrates was a far more sublime and Christian 
death of the two. 

Of the philosophy of Kant little more than a meagre 
outline can be given in the compass of a lecture, and no 
such outline, however full and faithful and correct, can 
convey an adequate and just idea of a great system of 
philosophy. And yet it may be of service to study an out- 
line map before travelling over a country, and thus learn 
beforehand what are the prominent features of the region 
we are about to visit. I shall be satisfied if the exposition 
I am about to give shall serve as such an introduction and 
guide to any of you in your future study of the great 
author himself. 

The philosophical systems that were chiefly in vogue, 
it will be remembered, at the time when Kant came upon 
the stage, were the sensationalism of the followers of Locke, 
the idealism of Leibnitz and his followers, together with 
the prevailing scepticism of Hume. These all, the latter 
chiefly, had left their impression on the thinking mind of 
northern Europe, and were producing their effects. Hume 
had shown triumphantly that certain ideas of the human 
mind, as e.g. ideas of cause and effect, are not derived 



THE GEKMAN PHILOSOPHY. 353 

from experience, and thence concluded that they were 
mere figments of the imagination, quite without authority. 
Kant saw the necessity of a profounder investigation of 
the fundamental laws of the mind itself, as the only way 
of settling truth and philosophy on a sure basis. He saw 
that Hume was right as to his premises in this case. He 
saw that the ideas of cause and effect were, however, not 
the only ideas that are not derived from experience, that 
the same thing is true of a large class of our ideas, and 
that instead of rejecting these ideas, with Hume, as of no 
authority on that account, it was necessary to admit and 
establish them as of the very highest authority. To these 
ideas or forms of thought not derived from experience, he 
gives the name transcendental ; and seeks to determine 
their number and legitimate province. These are primi- 
tive intuitions ; a priori conceptions, not a posteriori — not 
the result of experience — not, with Descartes, innate. The 
truths which are thus acquired are the only truths that 
are absolutely certain. The truths of experience are con- 
tingent, variable, uncertain, changing with circumstances. 
These a priori or transcendental conceptions, on the con- 
trary, have the character of necessary and universal truths. 
Of such a nature are the ideas we have of substance, 
causality, infinity, space, time, etc. The faculty which 
furnishes the principles of this a priori cognition Kant 
denominates the pure reason. 

It is the object of the work entitled Critique of Pure 
Eeason to give a general theory of all the pure or a priori 
elements which enter into human knowledge. The work 
consists of two parts, the first of which enumerates and 
establishes the existence of those various elements, the 
second investigates their value, absolute and relative, and 
their right use. 

All human knowledge, says Kant, is derived from two 
sources, equally important but essentially diverse. These 
two sources or fundamental faculties, are first the sensi- 



354 THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 

Mlity ; (sinnlichkeit), which is the capacity of receiving 
representations (vorsteHungen) of objects by means of the 
impressions made on our senses, — a passive faculty — hence 
called the receptivity, but essential to the representation 
of objects, since objects arc represented to us only as we 
ai^e affected in some way by them ; the representations 
thus received he calls also intuitions ; (anschauungen), 
and their objects are appearances, phenomena (erschei- 
nung) ; second the understanding ; (verstand) — the fac- 
ulty of knowing objects by means of the rej)resentations 
afforded by sense — the source of notions, or conceptions, 
(begriffe) as the sensibility is of intuitions. It is not, 
like the former, a mere capacity (fahigkeit), but an active 
power, a faculty (vermogen). Its developments are spon- 
taneous. These two powers, differing thus in character 
and function, concur in all our knowledge. The study of 
the one differs from that of the other as Esthetic differs 
from Logic. Now the question is, what are the pure a 
priori elements that are contained in each of these ; for to 
determine this simply, not to treat at large of the two fac- 
ulties, is Kant's sole object in the Critique. And first as 
to the sensibility. In every object of intuition, that is, in 
every phenomenon, we distinguish two things ; the matter 
of the phenomenon, — that which is manifold, variable, 
that which corresponds to the sensation, and the form, 
that which is fixed and unchangeable. The former is 
given in sensation or a posteriori ; the latter is indepen- 
dent of and prior to sensation i. e., a priori. On examina- 
tion we discover two of these invariable elements or 
forms, of sensible intuition, viz., time and space — the neces- 
sary conditions of all sensible experience. You cannot 
conceive of body without space. It is in space that you 
locate it, determine its figure, size, relations. It is the 
indispensable condition then of sensation. It is not given 
in the materials of sensation ; — annihilate all those mate- 
rials, all sensation, all matter, you have not annihilated 



THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 355 

space — that still remains — must therefore be its form. 
It answers to the character of an a priori or pure ele- 
ment ; since universal, invariable, necessary. 

So of time. It loo is 2^ form of sensible intuition. All 
objects not only, but all consciousness or internal intuition 
is represented under this form, just as all objects are in 
space. We are sensible of things and conscious of things 
only as presented in succession to our sensibility. These 
then are indispensable conditions both, — pure forms of 
sensibility, with which we invest all the materials of sen- 
sation. Since these are given not in experience, since 
they are not contained in the material of sensation, but 
are forms of it only, they have no objective existence, are 
purely subjective, conceptions of the mind. They exist 
within us, not without — are necessary and pure intuitions 
of the internal sense. 

Let us now examine the understanding to discover what 
pure a priori elements are there contained. 

The function of this power, it will be observed, is to 
judge, to elevate into notions or conceptions, the percep- 
tions furnished by the sensibility. It does this by linking 
diverse sensations together, reducing them to unity by 
means of memory, imagination, consciousness, thus form- 
ing conceptions. Without this faculty we should have no 
knowledge, only sensations. As the sensibiHty imposes the 
laws or forms of time and space on the objects presented to 
it, so the understanding imposes certain laws or forms of 
its own on the materials furnished by sensibility. What 
are these forms of the understanding, these laws of its 
operation ? If we examine all the different methods of 
judging, we find them to be four — viz, quantity, quality, 
relatio7i, modality — ^i. e., in every judgment we have regard 
to some one of these four things, predicate something 
either as to the quantity, or the quality, or the relation, or 
the mode of existence of the object considered. Each of 
these four embraces under it three distinct, pure, a priori 



356 THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 

conceptions. Thus, in judging of quantity we regard the 
object as a unity, plurality, or totality. In judging of 
quality we have to do with affirmation or reality, negation, 
limitation, i. e. we affirm or deny, or limit the thing pro- 
posed or considered. So in judging of the relations of an 
object, we have to do with the ideas of substance, causality 
and reciprocity ; while if we consider the modality or mode 
of existence of any object, we regard its possibility, actu- 
ality, and necessity. 

These are all pure a priori conceptions, indispensable to 
experience — prior to it — the conditions and forms or laws 
of the understanding. Kant calls them categories. 

Kant divides all judgments into two classes, analytic 
and synthetic. The former is a simple statement of our 
conception or notion of a thing, as that a triangle has three 
sides. The latter states some circumstance or quality not 
involved necessarily in the conception of the object itself, 
adds something to what is implied in the simple concep- 
tion of the object, as when we say a straight line is the 
shortest distance between two points. These synthetic 
judgments may be either a posteriori, from experience, or 
a priori, independent of experience. Iron is malleable, — a 
sjmthetic judgment from experience. !N"ot so that synthetic 
judgment already stated respecting a straight line as the 
shortest distance, etc. That experience can only confirm. 
It was true without experience, has universality which 
experience cannot bestow, since experience can only show 
what has been frequently found true, but cannot prove that 
the same is universally true. Experience may show that 
in numberless instances the sun has risen, or crows are 
black, etc., but cannot prove that no exceptions ever will 
occur. Nor is there any a priori synthetic judgment that 
affirms that. But that every effect must have a cause is a 
pure a priori conception, not given in experience merely, 
but independent of it, prior to it. Now these synthetic a 
priori judgments are certaiii and universal. They are the 



THE GERMAliT PHILOSOPHY. 



357 



ground of certitude. The veracity of human reason rests 
and reposes on that certitude. Thus and therefore it is, 
that, while endless disputes prevail about metaphysics, men 
do not endlessly quarrel about mathematics, logic, or the 
higher physics, because these have to do with universal 
and a priori truths, not with the contingent and variable. 
The principles and properties of mathematical science are 
only so many conceptions ; the rules and propositions of 
logic are only so many invariable laws of the human mind. 
Even in physics men follow reason while investigating 
nature. Eeason furnishes the rules, methods, prohlems even, 
by which and on which they work. Science then reposes 
on the laws of the human mind. 

Thus far we have iiivestigated the a priori elements 
given in the sensibility and the judgment. The Reason 
also furnishes its quota. What are they ? 

Understanding is the faculty of judging ; — Eeason the 
faculty of ratiocination, — of drawing conclusions from 
premises. It reduces our various conceptions to unity, 
traces each up to some more general idea, and that onward 
to its ultimate principle. It also deduces the particular 
from the general. ]^ow in our reasonings and generaliz- 
ings we may proceed in either of three ways, as shown by 
the rules of formal logic, viz., categorically, hypothetically 
or disjunctively. The first regards the relations of sub- 
stance and accident, and proceeding according to this 
method we reach at last, as the result, a subject universal 
and absolute, not itself the attribute of any other sub- 
stance, viz., the soul. Proceeding hypothetically, we reach 
at last a supposition which supposes nothing further, some- 
thing which is not an effect depending on some anterior 
effect, the absolute unity and totality of the series of 
phenomena, viz., the world or universe. Finally, by the 
disjunctive process we arrive at last at the absolute unity 
of all the objects of thought in general, viz.. Deity. The 
soul, the world, God ; these are three ideas or pure forms 



358 THE GERMAK PHILOSOPHY. 

of the reason, the first, uniting in itself as unity all the 
phenomena of the Ego ; the second, uniting in itself, as 
unity, all the phenomena of the noji-Eyo ; the third, 
uniting in itself, as the absolute and final unity, both 
the other, the Ego and the non-Ego, as the source and 
,basis of both. 

Corresponding to these three ideas of the reason are 
three sciences : psychology, cosmology, theology ; the 
science of the soul, of the world, of God. 

As the results of the understanding are called notions, 
so the results of the reason are in this system termed ideas. 
These ideas, unlike our notions, have no objective reality, 
are the pure creations of the reason, are subjective merely ; 
notions being derived, primarily, from experience and 
sensation, can be traced back to some objective reality, fall 
within the limits of perception. Not so ideas ; they afford 
no basis of certain objective reality ; they only regulate 
the use of the understanding, as that regulates the use of 
the faculty of sense. Such, however, is the constitution 
of the mind, that we do inevitably and universally proceed, 
as above shown, in accordance with these ideas of the 
pure reason ; that we necessarily form the idea of a think- 
ing subject, a soul, as the basis and unity of the phenom- 
ena of self ; the idea of a substance, the universe, as basis 
of the phenomena of the non-Ego ; the idea of a supreme 
substance and unity, Deity, as the ground of all secondary 
conditions of existence. Still, though all men do, and 
must and ever will reason in this way, these great ideas 
have, after all, only a subjective value. They demonstrate 
nothing, can prove nothing, objectively; for all proof, all 
certain science and knowledge, is grounded on experience. 
Hence all attempts to prove, by the arguments usually 
drawn from reason and the pure metapliysics, the person- 
ality of the soul, its immateriality, its immortality, the 
creation or non-eternity of the universe and tlie existence 
of God, are futile and worthless. The opposite can with 



THE GERMAIif PHILOSOPHY. 359 

equal facility be proved from the same source. What 
then ? Scepticism ? Have these things no reality, no 
existence, no certainty to us ? They have. We are not 
left without any ground of certainty as to the reality and 
objective existence of these things. We have that ground, 
not in the pure and theoretical reason, indeed, which is - 
merely formal, merely negative, but we have it in our 
practical reason, in our moral nature. The knowledge of 
the external universe, and of the sonl, and of God, rests 
ultimately on the same firm and sure basis as the knowl- 
edge of our own present existence and thought and sensa- 
tion, viz., on the basis of consciousness. For consciousness 
attests the reality and existence of our moral nature, 
reveals to us the supremacy within us of an absolute moral 
law, imperative, commanding, — the authority of the con- 
science, that grand practical movement of the reason, by 
which it sways the sceptre of lofty dominion over the soul, 
and regulates the conduct. This is a reality as sure and 
positive as any other part of consciousness. And it implies, 
what ? Mark the answer. It implies freedom, without 
which all moral action were impossible ; a future state, as 
the goal of human action and completion of the present ; 
a God, as the lawgiver and judge, whence emanates this 
regulative and legislative principle in man. These grand 
trutlis are realities, then, founded not in theoretical reason, 
but in practical reason, in the moral nature of man, and 
attested by consciousness, whose testimony is never to be 
called in question. 

Between the theoretical and the practical reason there 
comes in as an intermediate and connecting link the 
faculty of judgment, which unites the two in a common 
result. This faculty gives us the feeling of the sub- 
lime, the beautiful, and the reverse, also the notion of a 
final end, — ^teleology — arising from the perception of the 
design everywhere manifest in nature. These noble 
aesthetic sentiments confirm the belief of the practical 



360 THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 

reason in immorality and in God. The certainty and 
immutability of moral distinctions and the evidence of 
natural religion are thus placed on a basis as sure and 
valid as anything short of absolute demonstration can 
possibly make them. 

Such are the grand outlines of the philosophy of Kant. 
To sum up its leading points : — He acknowledges the 
reality of our sense-knowledge, makes it the basis in fact 
of all positive science, but not the source of all our 
knowledge. We have beyond and above this a priori con- 
ceptions, not derived from experience. These are the forms 
of our intellections, as furnished by reason while experi- 
ence or sense furnishes only the matter. But these pure 
a priori forms and conceptions are subjective only, can 
never lead to objective reality. The certainty of those 
truths which lie above and beyond the sphere of sense, 
and which the theoretical reason affirms but can never 
prove, is to be found in our moral nature. 

The grand merits of this system are its clear and com- 
plete analysis of the mental processes, especially of the a 
l^riori elements of our knowledge ; its distinction between 
sense and understanding ; its discovery in the soul of a 
higher faculty than either, viz., the pure reason; its 
establishing morality and religion on a firm basis, the con- 
stitution of man's moral nature as attested by conscious- 
ness. 

Its grand defects are, that it makes the a priori ele- 
ments of time and space purely subjective, mere phe- 
nomena of ego, and assigns them to the sensibility in dis- 
tinction from the understanding, as if the latter had no 
concern with them ; and also it makes the reason and its 
ideas, in like manner, purely subjective and personal, thus 
banishing from pure philosophy the certain knowledge of 
the soul as immortal and immaterial, of the universe as an 
objective reality, and of G-od, making all these all-import- 
ant truths rest entirely on altogether another basis, viz., 



THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 381 

that of belief in and consciousness of our moral nature. 
The system of Kant puts no faith in reason as a revealer 
of these grand truths. 

With all the merits then of this system, its tendency to 
pure idealism is obvious and apparently ineyitable. "We 
shall not be surprised then to find the successors of Kant 
going beyond him in this direction, and with less perspi- 
cacity and less caution, boldly adventuring where his clear 
and gigantic intellect could find no sure resting place. 

Addenda on Kant. — A Biography. 

It was at the age of twenty-two that he published his 
first work. His teaching was in families in the environs of 
Konigsberg. He never went out of the province of Kon- 
igsberg in his life. That was to him a theatre of action, a 
mart and centre of commerce, a political centre and literary 
also, affording abundant advantages for the study of men 
and manners. While specially devoted to mathematics, 
and physical science, he was a stranger to no branch of 
knowledge. He was gifted with a vast memory and a great 
power of conception and combination. He despised 
rhetoi'icians, and with Montaigne regarded rhetoric as the 
art of deceiving men, yet he by no means undervalued the 
talent of speaking well. It was in his lectures on anthro- 
pology and physical geography, that his abundant knowl- 
edge of men and things, his accurate observation, his pro- 
found and original and just views, more conspicuously 
appeared, and these lectures following his other course, 
were attended by auditors of all ages and all ranks. 

As a writer he is often embarrassed and obscure, need- 
lessly so, but is always equal to, and often rises above his 
cotemporaries in the qualities of good writing. His dis- 
tinguishing characteristic was love of truth ; nothing stood 
second to tliat in his estimation, and he demanded liberty 
to think and to speak accordingly, could brook no hin- 



362 THE GERMAiq^ PHILOSOPHY. 

drance to the free utterance of truth, demanded the strictest 
veracity also on the part of his friends. 

He was a patriot ; '^ Liberty, law, and the public power 
are elements of all social life," he says, '^law and liberty 
without power, is anarchy. Law and power without lib- 
erty, is despotism ; power alone is barbarism ; liberty and 
law united with power is republicanism, the only good 
civil constitution, but which is not necessarily democracy." 

In religion he seems to have been a sort of Deist. He 
rejected all supernatural revelation as useless and impossi- 
ble, and for a long time took no part in public worship of 
any kind, which he regarded as needful only for the feeble- 
minded ; yet so far from discarding the doctrines of the 
Bible, he bent all his energies, says Willm, to reconcile 
them with reason and thus established a rational theology. 
He inculcates in his writings rather a natural than a 
supernatural religion. 

His personal appearance was not unprepossessing. 
His physical constitution was feeble, his frame not robust 
but small and delicate, his eye blue, at once lively and 
mild, indicating spirit and kindness, his forehead elevated, 
indicating the profound thinker. 

Never was a man more systematic and exact in all his 
habits ; and to this regularity is owing his advanced age 
and his vigor of mind and body until almost the last. 

It is impossible, says Willm, when one has read all 
that his biographers relate of Kairtriiot to love and re- 
spect the man as much as we admire the philosopher. It 
is related by his biographers that his habit was to sit at 
evening twilight by his window and meditate on his next 
day's lecture, his eyes fixed abstractedly meanwhile on a 
neighboring tower. The gradual growth of a row of pop- 
lars, at last hid the tower from view, and occasioned so 
much embarrassment to the course of thought in the phi- 
losopher that he was under the necessity of prevailing with 
the owner to cut down the pretensions of the too aspiring 



SUCCESSORS OF KAXT. 363 

poplars. It is also related of him that he was accustomed 
in lecturing to fix his eyes on a particular coat button of 
one of his auditors. One day the lecture was unaccounta- 
bly confused and heavy, a perfect failure in fact. Think- 
ing of the circumstance afterward, Kant remembered 
that the hutton was that day unfortunately missing, and 
coat being minus the button, the philosopher was minus 
his lecture. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SUCCESSOES OF KAKT. 

KAiq^T had nicely distinguished the various faculties of 
the mind, but had not attempted to derive them from a 
common source, to trace them back to a single and primi- 
tive origin. The life of the soul, however, is a unique and 
single principle. It is one in its origin, and one in its end. 
The development of this principle is progressive, and is to 
be viewed in diverse aspects and results as understanding, 
judgment, reason, etc. What is this unity, this single fun- 
damental principle of all psychological development, and 
all human knowledge ? Let us search it out, and so place 
the philosophy of Kant on a better foundation and give it 
the completeness it needs. Thus reasoned the first success- 
ors of Kant, of whom Reinhold and Fichte are more espe- 
cially worthy of notice. 

§ 1. EEINHOLD. 

Born at Vienna, 1758 ; at first a Jesuit ; after the dis- 
solution of that order, a Barnabite monk and professor of 
philosophy in his convent ; in 1783 embraces protestantism ; 
1787 professor at Jena. 1794 at Kiel, where he dies in 
1823. He was a man of the world, a journalist, a man of 
brilliant and vivacious mind, but not the calm, patient, pro- 



364 



SUCCESSORS OF KANT. 



found thinker, — not the correct philosopher. His thoughts 
were often yery just and weighty, but he was content to 
herald and announce them merely, leaving it to others to 
give them the correct expression. His influence on the 
public mind, however, was very great. He adopts the phi- 
losophy of Kant at its first appearance with enthusiasm, and 
writes a series of letters on it which were widely read, and 
with which Kant himself expressed great satisfaction. 
Seeking to place this philosophy, however, on a firmer 
basis, as already explained, he discovers, as he thinks, the 
fundamental principle of which he is in search, in the fact 
of consciousness or of perception, and bases human knowl- 
edge on the representative faculty. In the representative 
process, there is the subject which represents, the object 
represented, and also the act of representation itself, 
which unites the two, — their synthesis in the conscious- 
ness. Representation supposes in man, or the subject, 
a representative faculty, which precedes, of course, the 
exercise or act, and which comprises under it, sensible intui- 
tion, concept, idea, sensibility, understanding even, and 
reason. The principle of consciousness, then, which deter- 
mines the representative faculty, is the elementary principle 
of knowledge, and of all philosophy. 

§ 2. FiCHTE. 

That foundation which Reinhold sought thus to estab- 
lish in the consciousness, Fichte, going back of that, 
going further than that, places in an act primitive and 
spontaneous, the source of consciousness itself, viz., the act 
by which the soul, the subject, the ego, concludes its own 
existence as such. This modification of the system de- 
serves a more particular mention ; but first the personal 
history of the man himself demands our attention. 

Johann Grottlieb (or Theophilus) Fichte was born at 
Rammenan, May 19, 1762, of poor but respectable parents; 
his father a ribbon-maker, descended from a Swedish ser- 



SUCCESSORS OF KANT. 365 

geant of the army of Giistavus Adolphus, a man of strict 
integrity, of firm, unbending will, virtues which passed over 
in striking degi'ee to the inheritance of the son. Many 
anecdotes are related of the childhood and youth of Gottlieb, 
which show that he possessed a yery marked character. 
He was little like other children, little with them, took no 
pleasure in the sports of his brothers and sisters. There 
seems to have been in him, in very childhood, a love of 
solitude, a power of creative imagination, vague longings 
for something superior to what was about him or what was 
in him. By himself he wanders into the fields and among 
the forests, pleased with the luxury of silence and his own 
thoughts and the deep solitude of nature, gazes into the 
deep sky till the sun goes down, and late in the twilight re- 
turns sadly, thoughtfully, to his home. An anecdote which 
is related of him shows the self-command of the boy. A 
work of fiction which fell into his hands seized so strongly 
on his imagination that he forgot all things else, and was 
punished for his negligence. Deeply stung with the con- 
sciousness of his fault and his degradation, he resolved to 
sacrifice forever the object which had betrayed him to this 
offence, and taking the book, walked deliberately to a 
stream that ran past the house, and lingering awhile to 
gather strength for the sacrifice, summoning all his resolu- 
tion, threw the idol at last into the stream and as he saw 
it floating away forever from him, burst into tears. The act 
had been observed, and as the boy did not explain his con- 
duct, his motive was misunderstood, and he was again 
severely punished — a prelude of what oft happened to him 
in after life, to be misunderstood and suffer in consequence. 
The precocity of the child attracted the attention of the Lord 
of Eammenan, and of his friend the Baron von Miltitz, 
of Saxony on the Elbe, who took charge of his education, 
placing him under the care of a country pastor, where he 
passed some of the pleasantest years of his life. Here he 
remained till his thirteenth year, receiving his first instruc- 



366 SUCCESSORS OF KANT. 

tion in the ancient languages, and what was worth more 
to him than all languages, ancient or modern, kind and 
affectionate treatment. His patron now placed him at 
the seminary of Schulpforte. There he was harshly treated 
and much abused. Tyranny and force on the part of 
the teachers led to duplicity and cunning on the part of the 
pupils. The generous and virtuous elements of character 
were little cultivated or esteemed. The integrity and 
honesty and self-reliance of Gottlieb were put to a severe 
test. His sympathies were repressed. His tears were taught 
to flow in secret. He resolved to fly from the gloomy mon- 
astic walls, where life was so wretched. He was already 
well on his way, on foot and without resources, to Ham- 
burg, when he remembered a saying of his old pastor, that 
one ought never to begin an important undertaking in 
life without asking Divine assistance. Kneeling by the 
road-side, he implores the blessing of heaven on a friend- 
less wandering boy. The thought of his mother now 
occurred to him ; his eyes filled with tears ; wandering 
from his school, he was in fact wandering from his friends 
and home, and might perhaps return no more. This 
thought brought back his courage and his better principle. 
He resolved to return and bravely meet the punishment 
that might await him at Schulpforte, " that he might look 
once more on the face of his mother." The honesty with 
which he confessed his fault procured his pardon, and he 
was thenceforth more kindly treated. How much to the 
future man was that one instance of self-conquest worth in 
after years. 

At eighteen Fichte enters the university of Jena as stu- 
dent of theology ; and here his philosophic genius seems to 
have been more decidedly awakened by the grand prob- 
lems of liberty, necessity and Providence, which now 
came before him for solution. His patron's death, which 
occurred soon after, threw him again on his own resources, 
and he became private tutor in Zurich. Here he became 



SUCCESSORS OF KANT. 367 

acquainted with Mile. Rahn, a niece of Klopstock, his 
future bride. His tutorship was not altogether to his 
mind, nor altogether successful, and 1790 he quits Zurich 
to seek his fortunes in Grermany. Vainly seeking employ- 
ment at Stuttgart and Weimar, he comes at last to Leipsig 
and begins giving lessons in Greek and philosophy, and 
here forms his first acquaintance with the writings of Kant. 
It was an era in his life. " I have been living for the last 
four or five months," he says, ^' in Leipsig the happiest life 
I can remember. I came here with my head full of grand 
projects, which all burst one after another, like so many 
soap-bubbles without leaving me so much as the froth. 
At first this troubled me a little, and half in despair, 1 
took a step which I ought to have taken long before. 
Since I could not alter what was without me, I resolved to 
try to alter what was within. I threw myself into philos- 
ophy, the Kantian, and here I found the true antidote for 
all my evils, and joy enough into the bargain. The 
influence which this philosophy, the ethical part of it par- 
ticularly, has had upon my whole system of thought is not 
to be described." He proceeds to express his firm belief 
in the doctrine of free will as the only foundation for 
virtue and duty, and then proceeds : " I am furthermore 
well convinced, that this life is not the land of enjoyment, 
but of labor and toil — that every joy is granted to us but 
to strengthen us for further exertion ; that the manage- 
ment of our own fate is by no means required of us, but 
only self-culture. I trouble myself, therefore, not at all 
concerning the things that are without ; I endeavor not to 
appear, but to he. And to this perhaps I owe the deep 
tranquillity I enjoy." After various reverses and removals, 
T'ichte visits Konigsberg, attracted by his admiration for 
Kant. He places in the hands of that philosopher, to 
whom he had no introduction, a work written in eight 
days entitled, A Critique on all Revelation. Kant saw in 
the stranger his own peer, and received him cordially. 



368 SUCCESSORS OF KANT. 

But the resources of the adventurer were nearly ex- 
hausted. His journal bears the most touching witness to 
many a mental conflict on this score. " I have reckoned 
my finances/' he says under date of August 28th, " and 
find that I have just enough to subsist on for a fortnight.' 
First September, "A situation as tutor, however reluc- 
tantly I might accept it, does not even offer itself, while 
the uncertainty of my position does not allow me to work. 
I must return home. I can perhaps borrow from Kant 
the small sum needful for my journey." 12th September, 
" I wanted to work to-day but could do nothing. How 
'will this end ? What will become of me a week hence ? 
Then all my money will be gone." But a brighter day 
was at hand for the poor struggling scholar, conscious of 
his strength and firm in his purpose. By the advice of 
Kant he puts his manuscript into the hands of a book- 
seller, who consents to publish it anonymously. So well 
was it written, and so fully did it fall in with the known 
sentiments of the great philosopher that it was very gene- 
rally attributed to Kant himself. The mistake at once 
made the reputation and the fortune of Fichte. He mar- 
ries and returns to Zurich in 1793. The applause now 
acquired procured him the chair of philosophy at Jena, 
the leading university of Germany, whither he repairs in 
1794 ; not however to end his troubles or escape oppo- 
sition, which seems to have been his fortune in life. 
After some years of arduous toil and brilliant success, his 
enemies charge him with inculcating atheistic sentiments. 
The government takes up the matter. Fichte in disgust 
throws up his appointment and retires to Berlin in 1799. 
There he pursued his studies with renewed energy, and 
published several works. 

In 1805 he is appointed professor at Erlangen. The 
troubles with France now occurred, and Prussia lost her 
independence. Fichte shares the lot of the vanquished 
and escapes to Copenhagen. After the peace of Tilsit he 



SUCCESSOES OF KAKT. 369 

returns to Berlin and accepts the rectorship of the Univer- 
sity then just organized there. His rule was one of firm- 
ness and vigor. His labors were for the country quite as 
much as for philosophy. He lectures with all the fire and 
fervor of a patriot, and pronounces his celebrated discourse 
to the Grerman people, while the French drums were sound- 
ing in the street beneath the windows of his lecture-room. 
At the commencement of the campaign of 1813, Fichte 
terminates one of his most eloquent lectures with these 
words : "This course will be suspended till the end of the 
campaign. We will resume them in a free country or die 
in the attempt." Loud shouts responded to his appeal. 
Fichte descends and places himself in the ranks of a corps 
of volunteers Just departing for the field of strife. His no- 
ble wife devotes herself wholly to the care of the sick and 
wounded in the hospitals, and the contagion seizes her — 
her husband devotes himself day and night to her care, 
contracts the same disease and expires the 28th January, 
1814, at 52. A truly heroic life is here, a truly great and 
noble character rises before us, like a granite obelisk pierc- 
ing the clouds, defying the winds and storms. 

We haye lingered so long in sketching the man that we 
must pass rapidly over the philosophy. And as we wish 
merely to indicate its general outlines, and show wherein 
it differs from that of Kant, it will not be necessary to go 
into detail. Kant had admitted the objective reality of 
things about us in the material world, but had contented 
himself with saying that we cannot know them as they are 
in themselves, but only as they appear to us, only as phe- 
nomena. These appearances, even, are determined by our 
intellectual organization. The laws of nature are in fact, 
only the laws of our own mind, the phenomenal world is, 
as to it^ forms at least, only a production of our own intel- 
lect. Still it has a real and material existence independent 
of us. Fichte carries idealism much further than this. 
The Me only exists, and the things of which Kant speaks 



I 



370 SUCCESSOES OE KAKT. 

are only just so many and such as the intelligent Me postu- 
lates and determines. 

The "things in themselves," so called, of Kant, are thus 
reduced to a simple not-me, — are imagination, not a reality, 
— devised merely to give the me the knowledge of itself. 
And why assume the objective existence of these so called 
things ? Science must proceed from one self-evident posi- 
tion as starting-point or basis, and go on step by step, 
assuming nothing. jN"ow the starting-point in philosophy, 
says Fichte, is not even consciousness, but something back 
of that — an act of the mind, whence our very conscious- 
ness, our knowledge of self proceeds — an act by which the 
ego comes to know itself. But to go no further back even 
than consciousness and to make that the starting-point ; 
now are we conscious of external things ? no ; — only of our 
own impressions, sensations, judgments, ideas, or whatever 
we choose to call them, — only of these are we conscious. 
Whatever I experience, that and that only is with certainty 
known to me. If there be an external reality, then how 
can I ever hnoio it ? believe it, I may : that is another 
thing ; but how hnoic it ? It must first pass through my 
mental experience, before I can be conscious of it, and in 
so doing becomes subjective ; no longer objective. Is a rep- 
resentation given us by the constitution and operation of 
our minds ? How can we verify the so called representa- 
tion and know its correctness, but by comparing the said 
representation with the thing represented, that is, by com- 
paring it with what is out of our consciousness and cannot 
therefore be known or perceived by us ? But we are so 
formed, it will be replied, that we must accept our con- 
sciousness as a true representation of what lies beyond and 
without. And what is this, Fichte replies, but a purely 
subjective process ; a law of our own minds ; we do not 
get out of the charmed circle of self, of the ego, in this 
way ; nor is it possible to do so, try what method we will. 
The very necessity of supposing, even, an external world is 



SUCCESSORS OF KAKT. 371 

a necessity resulting from the very constitution of the mind, 
a purely subjective necessity. 

Did Fichte, then, mean to deny all objective existence ? 
Not at all. He denies merely that in strict pJiilosojphy, 
which allows us to assume nothing which requires cer- 
tainty, and confines us to the facts of consciousness, we can 
ever attain a positive knowledge of such external reality. 
We can never hnow it. If it exist, it lies by the very sup- 
position beyond our consciousness, and can only be Relieved, 
not known. 

" He imagined the mind," says Morell, " to be as it were 
an intelligent eye placed in the central point of our in- 
ward consciousness, surveying all that takes place there, 
and it was from that point of view, (the only absolute and 
scientific one,) that he wished to give an account of our 
moral and intellectual history, detailing the rise, the pro- 
gress, and all the events of our real inward life from its 
commencement to its maturity. Whether the scenes 
which take place within this subjective circle betoken any 
objective existence or not, that was to him a matter of no 
consequence, and he knew that if this were the case, it 
was only just in proportion as the objects could lay aside 
as it were, their objectivity, and transport within the 
subjective sphere of the mind's vision, that they could be 
observed and known ; or, what is the same thing, that to 
us they could exist. The real history of every man, urged 
Fichte, is the history of his mind, the flow of his con- 
scious existence ; for what are to us woods, mountains, 
trees, or stars, but names we attach to certain parts of our 
consciousness ? What are all forms of the material world 
but certain visions which have passed through our own 
minds — sensations which we have inwardly experienced ? " 

Which now is the primitive, which the cause of the 
other, the subjective or the objective ? Have we subject- 
ive phenomena because there is an objective world to pro- 
duce them, or do we suppose such a world because we have 



373 SUCCESSORS OF KANT. 

the former ? Manifestly the suhjective comes first. I am 
conscious of sensations ; to explain these I infer the object- 
ive reality. The mind then is the sphere of its own opera- 
tions. It is at once subject and object. Such is, in popu- 
lar language, a general outline of his system. 

The technical method in which he established logically 
and scientifically the foundation principles of this system 
is sufficiently curious and sufficiently unintelligible to all 
but the initiated. Science, being one, must repose on 
some one absolute, unique, sovereign principle, the source 
of all knowledge and all reality, and that must be discov- 
ered by reflection. Xow on looking carefully we can find 
nothing more incontestible and certain than this proposi- 
tion, A=A ; in saying which I affirm nothing as to the 
existence of A, but only that if it is, it is lohat it is. Yet 
in even this I pass a judgment, and thereby propose or 
affirm myself, for all judgment implies the existence of him 
who judges. This is, in fact, the ^^ cogito ergo sum" of 
Descartes, scientifically stated. But further, in thus 
affirming itself, the me first becomes conscious of itself, nay, 
produces itself, for there is no Me without and prior to 
consciousness, and no consciousness prior to this proposi- 
tion or affirmation of itself. 

It is because it affirms itself, and it affirms itself be- 
cause it is. The Me affirms primitively its own being. 
This is the first act of the Me, and the absolute principle 
of all science. By a second act, the Me affirms, or opposes 
to itself a not Me, both absolute ; or — A is not=A. In the 
first case it viewed itself as absolute subject. In the 
second it become absolute object. The one proposition is 
absolute affirmation, the other absolute negation. The 
last proposition however is as truly primitive as the first ; 
to say Me is to distinguish that which is so called from 
something which is not itself. But this last proposition 
is contradictory of itself and of the first, for the Me and 
the not-Me are both affirmed as absolute, which is impos- 



SUCCESSOKS OF KAKT. 



373 



sible. To reconcile the two a third is necessary, as the 
union of the positive and the negative, viz., the principle 
of limitation, thus : the Me and the not-Me are both 
affirmed by the Me as reciprocally li^niting each other. 
The subject limits the object and the object the subject. 
So, then, we have here three elementary principles, 
affirmation, negation and limitation ; or thesis, antithesis, 
and synthesis, the primitive processes of the mind, the 
absolute principles of all science. "In thus hovering 
between subject and object, all our knowledge lies 
cradled." 

The idea of the not-me is then only a modification of 
the me — a creation of it, arising from the fact that the me 
perceives itself limited^ and supposes, out of itself, a cause 
of that limitation, yet in turn does itself define and limit 
that cause. All the sensations, ideas, etc., of the Me 
proceed from its own activity, and the not-Me itself is 
produced by the Me, proceeds from it and has no existence 
in fact but in it. 

This is pure absolute idealism. Beyond this can no 
mortal go, one is ready to exclaim ; but of this we can 
never be sure till we know what the next German that comes 
after is to teach. "What becomes of creation and the Crea- 
tor on this system ? one asks. Simply this becomes of it. 
The mind is the true creator of all things out of itself, 
since all things out of itself are only its reflected existence, 
itself objectified. Of God, as an essential and personal ex- 
istence, this philosophy knows nothing. Nay, to have an 
idea of God, says Mchte, is to limit him, and thus destroy 
the notion of him as an infinite being. How then, is Fichte 
an atheist ? Not at all. As a man he believes in God, but 
as a philosopher, does not know him. The region of phi- 
losophy, — he would say, — is pure science; the region of 
faith is quite another realm and domain from that. We 
cannot hnoiu God, cannot demonstrate him, cannot philos- 
ophize him, but practically we believe in him, just as prac- 



374 SUCCESSORS OF KAN^T. 

tically we believe in an external world, so soon as we step 
out of the realm of science into that of faith. It is a sad 
mistake, however, to construct a philosophy which does not 
admit a God ; nor can we be surprised at the charge of 
atheism which occasioned him so much trouble and led to 
his retirement from Jena. 

The great error of this system is obvious. It makes 
self the centre and circumference of all being and all knowl- 
edge. The sphere of thought, and the sphere of being are 
synonymous. The difference between those ideas and 
operations which depend solely on the mind's own activity, 
as memory, judgment, etc., and those which depend on 
something without the mind, and which we call perceptions, 
is altogether ignored. That which seems to be an object- 
ive element, a not-me, is admitted in what we call per- 
ception, but the fact is explained by the supposition of 
certain laws or limits in the very constitution of our minds, 
which make it necessary for us to create for ourselves such 
an objectivity as a limit of our own free activity. 

This point was never cleared up, and never could be. 
Nor was it ever shown why we should admit the reality of 
the me, rather than of the not-me ; why we should admit 
the one and deny the other. Nor was it ever shown what 
could be the ground and basis of all the phenomena of 
sense ; what the ground of the limitations and laws and 
activities of the mind itself ; what the foundation of all 
these subjective phenomena. This was ever asked, never 
answered. We are not surprised to learn, accordingly, that 
Fichte, on further reflection, essentially modified his whole 
system, and instead of making conscious self the sole exist- 
ence, the sole reality, a mere activity perceiving and think- 
ing while there is nothing to be perceived or thought, he so 
far changed his stand-point as to admit, not indeed a 
duality of existence, subject and object both real, inde- 
pendent existences, but on the contrary one sole and abso- 
lute existence, which is the same in both subject and 



SUCCESSORS OF KA]S"T. 



375 



object, and of which both are but forms. This one abso- 
lute existence is the divine mind or reason, — Deity himself, 
of which existence both what we experience within, and 
what we see without are equally and only manifestations. 
Still, however, mind is the only reality. The only objectiv- 
ity is mind in some or other of its forms and manifestations. 
Such, first and last, is the system of Fichte. We agree on 
the whole with Morell, that notwithstanding the results 
to which his philosophy led, it is still impossible to withhold 
our "admiration at the powerful eloquence, the unwearied 
energy of thought, the close and almost pitiless logic, with 
which he compels you on from one conclusion to another. 
So far from answering to the idea of a mystic recluse, 
dreaming away life in the midst of the ethereal and shadowy 
creations of his own fancy, we venture to affirm that never 
was there a man more intensely practical ; never one more 
formed to struggle with the stern and bitter sufferings of 
life ; never one who was more able to dispel the shadows 
and phantoms that deluded the world, and to gaze upon 
everything in its naked reality ; never a mind more clear, 
more deep, more sternly logical, more solemnly earnest, 
than was that of Fichte." 

Addenda. 

The following passage from his works will convey an 
idea at once of his eloquent and earnest thought, and of 
the depth and sincerity of his rehgious sentiments. 

" I am free ; and it is not merely my action but the free 
determination of my will to obey the voice of conscience, 
that decides all my worth. More brightly does the everlast- 
ing world now rise before me, and the fundamental laws 
of its order are more clearly revealed to my mental sight. 
My will alone lying hid in the obscure depths of my soul, 
is the first link in a chain of consequences stretching 
through the invisible realms of spirit. . . . The will 
is the efficient cause, the living principle of the world of 



II 






III 

1 1, 



376 SUCCESSOKS OF KAKT. 

spirit, as motion is of the world of sense. I stand between 
two worlds, the one visible, in which the act alone avails, 
and the intention matters not at all ; the other invisible 
and incomprehensible, acted on only by the will. In both 
these worlds I am an effective force. The divine life as 
alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-forming, 
self-representing will, clothed to the mortal eye with mul- 
titudinous sensuous forms, flowing through me, and 
through the whole immeasurable universe, here streaming 
through my veins and muscles, there pouring its abund- 
ance into the tree, the flower, the grass. The dead heavy 
mass of inert matter, which did but fill up nature, has 
disappeared, and in its stead, there rushes hy the bright, 
everlasting flood of life and poiuer from its infinite source. 

The eternal Will is the creator of the world, as he is the 
creator of the finite reason. . . . The infinite reason alone 
exists in liimself, the finite in him ; in our minds alone, 
has he created a world, or at least that by and through 
which it becomes unfolded to us. In his light, we behold 
the light and all tliat it reveals. Great living Will ! lohom 
no ivords can name, and no conception embrace ! Well may 
I lift my thoughts to thee, for I can think only in thee. In 
thee, the Incomprehensible, does my own existence and that 
of the world become comprehensible to me ; all the problems 
of being are solved, and the most perfect harmony reigns. 
I veil my face before thee, and lay my finger on my lips.'' 



SUCCESSORS OF KANT. 377 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SUCCESSORS OE KAKT. 

TVe have extended the course already so far beyond the 
limits originally intended, that what remains to be said of 
German philosophy must be compressed within the smallest 
reasonable limits, although the complete works of Hegel 
alone occupy 20 vols. 8yo., and the analysis of his system 
is itself a full-sized octavo volume. 

§-3. SCHELIilNG. 

Frederic William Joseph Schelling was bom Jan. 27, 
1775, at Leonberg in Wiirtemberg, educated at the univer- 
sity of Tiibingen, where he became acquainted with Hegel ; 
studied medicine and philosophy at Leipsig, and afterward 
at Jena, where he was the pupil of Fichte ; in 1798 was 
chosen to fill the chair vacated by Fichte at Jena, and lec- 
tured with great success ; in 1807 removed to Munich, and 
the same year was made member of the Munich Academy 
of Sciences ; there he remained with honor till 1841 or 2, 
when he was invited by the King of Prussia to Berlin, and 
went thither ; where as late as 1845 he still continued to 
lecture, at that time seventy years of age and upwards, but 
still hale and vigorous and full of enthusiasm. At Berlin, 
however, he met with much opposition from the disciples 
of Hegel, and subsequently resigned his post, in order to 
end his days in peace. He died at the Baths of Ragaz, in 
Switzerland, Aug. 20, 1854. 

The philosophy of Schelling may be briefly designated 
as the philosophy of the absolute. Fichte, as we have seen, 
had carried the subjective view to its furthest extreme, 
had merged all reality in the Ego, — had made the object 
dependent entirely on the subject and created by it, — had 



378 SUCCESSORS OF KA2JT. 

found it necessary, in a measure, to retrace subsequently, 
his own steps, and admit the existence of an essential 
reality as the foundation of the Me and the not-Me, of 
which reality with subject and object are but forms, them- 
selves in part identical. The principle now named, that 
of identity of object and subject in one absolute essence or 
existence, while it certainly constitutes the essential feature 
and peculiar modification of the later philosophy of Fichte, 
was fully adopted and made the basis of a complete system 
by Schelling. The merit of the discovery of this principle 
is warmly contested between the two, by their respective 
friends and disciples. 

We may proceed, says Schelling, in either of two ways 
in philosophizing ; with Fichte we may construct the ob- 
jective out of the subjective ; or we may with equal pro- 
priety and equal success reverse the process, and con- 
struct the subjective from the objective, deduce the Me 
from the universe. Now both the ego and the material 
world or nature are realities, the one as much as the other. 
They have each a common basis. There is one essential 
absolute existence that underlies them both. They are in 
truth both but forms and aspects of the absolute, in which 
both exist, indivisible and identical. 

Before either nature or the ego existed, this one great, 
absolute thought or being — viz. Deity — existed and filled all 
space. This self-existent one is the only absolute reality — 
not substance, as Spinoza held, but mind. To know him 
is to know all real existence and without knowing him we 
take not the first step in philosophy. The faculty by 
which we may know him and that immediately is the fac- 
ulty of intellectual intuition. All forms of being, all 
reality, are but the several forms of self-development of 
this absolute reality. The knowledge of the absolute is 
the highest knowledge, and alone deserves the name of 
philosophy. In distinction from this knowledge of the 
absolute by means of intellectual intuition, or ideas, there 



SUCCESSORS OF KAI^T. 



379 



is the knowledge of the conditional, the divisible, the 
individual, by means of our ordinary conception ; this 
Schelling terms inferior or secondary knowledge. 

All things are but the development of this absolute 
principle of being, every mind an image of the eternal 
mind, man a microcosm, and by gazing steadfastly into 
our own consciousness, and observing how our own minds 
develop, we may learn the universal process. Now in 
our consciousness we find subject and object combined 
and these are not in fact distinct, but rather, when properly 
viewed, the two-fold law of our mind's operation ; the one 
movement, that in which thought predominates, we call 
subject, the other, in which existence is the principal 
notion, we call object ; but this mode of thinking is both 
unphilosophical and untrue, and creates a distinction be- 
tween the soul and the world without, which does not 
really exist. From whichever of these opposite poles we 
set out we must arrive at the other. Erom the objective 
we may deduce the subjective, and vice versa. There are 
in fact too philosophies, then, two fundamental sciences, 
the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of spirit, 
from each of which we may construct the other. 

l^ow what is the law of self -development, according 
to which the absolute and all things else unfold them- 
selves ? 

This law comprises three movements or, as he terms 
them, potencies. The first is the Eeflective Movement, 
the attempt of Infinite to embody itself in the Finite. 
The second is that of Suisumption, the attempt of the 
Absolute thus embodied, to return to the Infinite. The 
third movement, that of Reason, is the union of the two 
former, in which the subjective and the objective move- 
ments are blended. 

By the first of these movements, the Infinite Being, 
containing in itself potentially all that it ever becomes 
actually, striving after self-development, embodies its own 



380 SUCCESSORS OF KAi^T. 

attributes in the finite, produces finite objects, reflections 
of itself, nature, which is thus the Infinite objectified. 

By the second movement the finite returns to the infi- 
nite, nature becomes absolute again, and reassumes the 
nature of the eternal, becomes conscious, becomes mind as 
we see it in man, which is only nature striving to find its 
way back to the Infinite and eternal. 

These two movements have given us object and sub- 
ject. The third movement unites the two in the divine 
reason, and gives us God, not in his original potential 
state but in his self -developed existence, as comprising the 
universe of mi7id and being. Thus out of the absolute we 
construct nature or object, mind or subject, and their 
reunion or God in his realized existence. 

In like manner, we may proceed to unfold both nature 
and mind according to the same law of development, and 
in so doing we find again three movements or potencies in 
each, giving use to three spheres of heing, each exhibit- 
ing the same general law, viz. two opposite potencies and 
a point of indifference or reunion of both. The move- 
ments by which nature (i. e. the absolute essence viewed 
objectively,) unfolds itself, Schelling calls real, and those 
of mind ideal. Looking at the real, or the philosophy of 
nature, the first movement gives us the sphere of matter, 
the union of the infinite with the finite. Matter is the 
emanation of the eternal mind ; it is that mind in its re- 
flective movement, making itself finite in order to become 
the object of its own contemplations and privity. This is 
the first movement, and its potencies are : 1. repulsion, or 
the expansive power, 2. attraction or the returning 
toward the centre and source, and 3. gravity, or the indif- 
ference of the two. 

The second grand movement of nature, the suisump- 
tive, by which it returns from the finite toward the Infi- 
nite again, gives us the second sphere, that of light, which 
is to matter what soul or mind is to body. This has its 



SUCCESSOKS OF KANT. 381 

three potencies also : 1. magnetism, the going forth in 
opposite poles, 2. electricity, the return, the unity of the 
positive and negative poles, 3. galvanism, the combination 
of the two. 

The third grand movement of nature, the reunion or 
combination of the two first, gives us the third sphere, that 
of organization or life, in which matter and light are com- 
bined. Its three potencies are : 1. reproduction, 2. irrita- 
bility or self -movement, 3. sensibility, which combines the 
two previous principles. This brings us to the point where 
matter or nature ends, and spirit begins. 

It will be observed, that all these movements and po- 
tencies follow the same regular law, and correspond per- 
fectly to each other ; first, the going forth, second, the 
regress, third the combination of the other two. 

Turning now from the real to the ideal, from nature to 
mind, we find the same grand law of development. 

The first grand movement is the going forth of mind, 
enbodying itself in the finite — making itself objective — ^giv- 
ing rise thus to the sphere of Tcnowledge, In knowing any- 
thing, the mind finds itself a limit, becomes finite. This 
sphere corresponds to that of matter on the objective or real 
side. The three potencies in this sphere are : 1. sensation, 
the mind going forth and embodying itself in an object or 
image, 2. reflection, the mind returning to self-conscious- 
ness of its own operation in the process, 3. freedom, the 
union of the two other. 

The second grand movement, the regress from the finite 
toward the infinite, gives us the second sphere of mind, viz., 
that of practice. As in knowledge essence expresses itself 
in a form, so in action the /orw returns to the essence. 
The three potencies here are : 1. Individuality, or the single 
individual mind, which is merely one moment of the 
infinite intelligence, just as a single thought is one mo- 
ment of the whole mind. 2. The State. 3. History, which 



382 SUCCESSORS OF KANT. 

combines the freedom of the one, with the necessary devel- 
opment of the other. 

The third movement blends together the two preced- 
ing, combines knowledge and practice, gives us the sphere 
of arty which is the combination of theory and practice. 
This, moreover, being the highest point of self -development 
of the absolute, the ultima Tliule of the process combines 
the two departments, the subjective and objective, the real 
and ideal, unites the two, brings matter and mind into 
combination, gives unity to the two. The finite and the 
infinite here unite, and this is what we see, the infinite, the 
beau-ideal, shadowed forth by the artist in the finite produc- 
tion. Here, then, we reach the end of the grand process. 

Such is a very brief outline of the system of Schelling. 
You perceive at once the perfect symmetry and completeness 
of the theory. A more perfect and comprehensive web- 
work of theory was probably never spun out of the human 
brain. You perceive the Y)Gvtect pantheism of the system. 
This was its great defect and crime. Schelling subse- 
quently modified the theory in several respects to meet this 
difficulty, giymg Si positive in distinction from, previous or 
negative philosophy. We have neither time nor inclina- 
tion to follow him in these successive modifications. Suf- 
fice it to say, he carries the threefold potency already 
explained into the field of revelation, and explains by the 
same general law the doctrines of Trinity, fall of man, 
redemption, and the entire religious history of the world. 

§ 4. Hegel. 

We have seen in Fichte and Schelling the two opposite 
phases of idealism, the subjective and objective ; the one 
making self the starting point and origin of all things ; the 
other resolving self and all things into the one existence, 
the absolute. It remains to notice a movement in philoso- 
phy still beyond these, more radically and thoroughly 
ideal than either, which, denying alike the subjective and 



SUCCESSOKS OF KEKT. 383 

the objective as realities, resolves both and all things into 
a mere logical process, mere thought. I mean the absolute 
idealism of Hegel. 

George William Frederic Hegel was born in Stuttgard, 
ill 1770, went to the university of Tiibingen at the age of 
seventeen, where he studied theology and philosophy, and 
formed the acquaintance of Schelling, with whom he 
remained ever after on terms of intimacy ; spent some time 
as private tutor in Switzerland and Frankfort ; went to 
Jena in 1801, where he enjoyed the friendship and society 
of Groethe and Schiller, published a dissertation, and began 
lecturing with a regular audience of four persons, fit audi- 
ence they were, however, though few. On Schelling's quit- 
ting Jena, Hegel filled the vacant chair for one year. His 
first important philosophical work was finished on the 
night of the memorable battle of Jena, while the artillery 
was roaring under the walls, the rapt philosopher uncon- 
scious of any special disturbance. On his way to the pub- 
lishers, next morning, he encounters the French soldiery in 
the streets, who without further ceremony proceed to lay 
his ideality under arrest. Subsequently we find him edit- 
ing a paper at Bamberg ; then rector of a college at INTu- 
remberg ; in 1816, called to the chair of philosophy at Heid- 
elberg, and finally, in 1818, to that at Berlin, the most 
important in Germany, where he lectured with great favor 
for thirteen years till his death by cholera, ISTovember 24, 
1831, in his sixty-first year. 

Hegel began as a firm advocate of the philosophy of 
Schelling, and sought only to give system and unity to his 
views. But he soon diverged, or rather passed on beyond 
him and out of sight. Schelling had not denied the primary 
existence of the absolute, previous to all development, 
lying beyond the region of thought, the basis of all exist- 
ence, apprehended by means of intellectual intuition. 
Hegel allows no such existence whatever. He begins with 
pure nothing, Schelling had admitted experience as the 



381 SUCCESSORS OFKAKT. 

means by which we come to know the law of the uniyerse 
and of all being, — experience as regards self, nature and his- 
tory. Hegel discards all this and makes thought itself, 
'pure logic, the revelation of the absolute, — nay, itself the 
sole existence, itself tlie very process in wliich the Absolute, 
or God, consists. Subject and object, thought and existence 
are absolutely identical, and in the mutual relation of the 
two consists the only reality. For example, I see an object, 
viz. a tree ; that tree, says Eichte, is merely a creation of 
your mind, your subjective activity odjectifies itself thus. 
That tree, so called, is not a real only an ideal thing. No, 
says Schelling, the object and the subject are both real, 
both forms of the one infinite and absolute essence. No, 
says Hegel, neither the tree nor the perception, neither the 
object nor the subject, has any real existence, in and by 
itself, or can have ; the only reality is the idea, the relation 
of the two. Ideas are the only concrete realities. This is 
the substance and essential character of his philosophy. 
The absolute is with him, as Morell has well stated, not 
the infinite substance of Spinoza, nor the infinite subject 
or Ego of Fichte, nor the infinite mind of Schelling, but 
infinite and eternal thought, a perpetual Pono, without 
beginning or end. 

In 'Order to philosophy, then, we must gain a clear con- 
ception of the laws of thought, the process of knowledge. 
The process by which we arrive at the knowledge of any- 
thing, we find on close examination to involve a threefold 
movement : first, the mind is in the state of mere con- 
sciousness or sensation, in which condition it is one ivith the 
olject, it merely feels, but does not distinguish between 
itself as subject and the thing or object felt ; secondly, th^ 
mind objectifies the sensation and refers it to some external 
existence or cause ; thirdly, the mind perceives, on reflec- 
tion, that this object is, after all, a product or process of 
its own activity, and so returns again to complete union 
and identity with it. The first of these movements is pro- 



SUCCESSOKS OF KANT. 385 

duced by sense, the second by understanding, the third by 
reason. This general threefold moyement or law pervades 
the universe of thought. We have first the infinite idea in 
itself, hare thought ; next the idea in its objective form, 
thought making itself external and objective, as in nature ; 
lastly, the idea in regress, thought returning to itself, 
mind. Hence philosophy has three grand divisions ; 
1. logic, or the philosophy of pure thought ; 2. the phi- 
losophy of nature ; 3. the philosophy of mind. 

1. Logic, the province of abstract thought, of the idea 
in itself (Idee an sich). 

Here again we find the same threefold law at worTc. All 
knowledge consists in separating one thing from another^ 
setting it off by itself, - distinguishing it from some other 
thing, e. g. finite stands opposed to infinite, suhjective is 
known only as distinguished from odjective, so north im- 
plies south, etc., etc. No one thing can be known in itself 
alone, no notion as mere zmitg can be conceived, but must 
consist of two opposite sides, positive and negative, and 
these must be combined in order to form a complete idea. 
This is what Hegel calls the doctrine or law of contradic- 
tion, which lies at the basis of his system, and which is the 
key to the whole. It corresponds to and carries out in the 
logical domain, that threefold movement which takes place, 
as already stated, in the 7nind, in the process of its attain- 
ing to the knowledge of anything, the two opposites 
answering to the first and second movements of mind, the 
union of these opposites in one answering to the third and 
highest movement. 

Logic, then, divides into three parts. I. Doctrine of 
Being, thought in its immediacy ; II. Doctrine of Essence, 
thought in communication ; III. Doctrine of Notion, 
thought in regress ; or the subjective, the objective, and 
the union of the two. In each of these divisions, again, 
we find the operation of this san^e threefold law or 
rhythm. 



386 SUCCESSORS OF KANT. 

I. Doctrine of Being comprises three categories, Quality, 
Quantity, Measure. 

(A) Quality. Nothing is the opposite of Being, and 
without the idea of nothing you could not have that 
of Being, and vice versa : they are the two opposite poles 
of thought. The two opposites combined form the idea 
of Becoming or of Existence, the production of some- 
thing out of nothing. Hence the proposition so paradoxi- 
cal, that Being=Nothing, (i.e. in their unlimited state, as 
opposites) and that Being and Nothing constitute exist- 
ence ; or Becoming is the identity of Being and non-Being. 
But this process now goes over again. Existence, in order 
to become a distinct reality must be still further subject to 
negation. Mere existence by itself is vague, undeter- 
mined ; negative it, say it is not so, or not so, and you 
make it definite, it becomes this or that, becomes some 
distinct existence. A rose is a rose, only by virtue of this 
negation, i. e. because it is not a lily or some or any other 
flower than just this particular one. 

We have, then, these three steps : 1. Being, which 
combined with Nothing gives, 2. Becoming or Existence, 
which, still farther negatived, gives 3. definite or inde- 
pendent existence. (Seyn, Deaseyn, Fiir-sich-seyn. ) 

These make the category of Quality. Then comes 
(B) the category of quantity, which consists of 1. pure 
quantity, 2. particular quantity, 3. the union of the two 
forming degree. The combination of the categories of 
quality and quantity gives us (C) Measure. 

II. Doctrine of Essence. Thought no longer abstract ; 
being as concrete and real existence — (corresponding to the 
second movement of mind by which the understanding 
separates the object from its consciousness). Here again 
a threefold division — 1. Essence, as ground or substratum, 
2. as phenomenon or attribute ; 3. as reality, or the union 
of substratum and attribute. 

III. Doctrine of Notion ; threefold again ; 1. suhjec- 



SUCCESSORS OF KANT. 387 

tive, tlie operating of the mind in (a) simple apprehension 

(b) judging, (c) reasoning ; 2. objective, our conceptions 
of (a) mechanical powers of nature ; (b) chemical powers ; 

(c) organization or design : 3. the union of the subjective and 
the objective in the Idea, (a) of life, (b) intelligence; (c) 
the absolute. Thus we reach by a logical and perfectly 
symmetrical process the highest step of pure thought, viz., 
the ahsolute idea — Deity, — and to do this we start, it will 
be remembered, from nothing. 

Thus far we have considered only the first grand divis- 
ion of philosophy, i, e,, Logic. "We now approach the 
second, and find the same grand law applying also here. 
Our progress will now be easier, since we know the path. 

II. Philosophy of Nature, Nature is thought — but 
only not subjective — thought externalizing itself. 

1. Nature in its undetermined forms — corresponding to 
what in logic was termed doctrine of Beings— gives us what 
we call mechanics, comprising, (a) 7nathematical properties 
of matter as existing in time and space, (b) mechanical 
properties, as gravitation, etc., absolute or actual proper- 
ties which regulate the motion of the various bodies in space. 

2. Physics, comprising, (a) the general forms of matter, 
as air, water, light, etc., (b) the relative forms, as cohesion, 
elasticity, etc., (c) specific forms, as acids, alkalies, etc. 

3. Organism, combining the other two, viz., matter 
and form, comprising, (a) the geological, (b) the vegetable, 
(c) the animal structure. 

III. This brings us to the third grand division — to Phi- 
losophy of the mind. Here we find the two former, the sub- 
jective and the objective processes, combined. The steps 
are similar to those in the preceding divisions. 

1. Mind viewed subjectively — comprising (a) anthropol- 
ogy ; (b) psychology ; (c) will — three separate branches of 
mental science. 

2. Viewed objectively, mind in its relations to what is 
without, or the range of Moral Philosophy ; comprising, (a) 



388 SUCCESSOKS OF KAKT. 

tlie rights of person and property, or what is termed juris- 
prudence, (b) rectitude of actions, or what is termed mor- 
als, (c) politics, or duties domestic and public. 

3. Mind in its absolute form, as belonging not to the 
individual but the race, comprising in its sever al stages 
of development, (a) art or aesthetics, (b) religion, (c) 
philosophy. 

Such is the single brief outline of the complete system 
of philosophy as marked out by Hegel. 

With regard to revealed religion, Hegel carries his sys- 
tem fully out in the explanation of the leading doctrines 
of revelation, making a complete rational theology. The 
personality of God in our sense of the word, is not ad- 
mitted, however ; for God is the absolute, and to make the 
absolute a person would be a contradiction in terms. He 
is not a person, but rather the absolute, total personality, 
as realized in every individual mind and consciousness of 
man. The Trinity finds its rational explanation by his 
threefold law. The Father is pure thought and self- 
existence. The Son is this pure thought, or existence, ob- 
jectified, manifest in the flesh. The Sjnrit is the reunion of 
the two. Kedemption is the reunion of man's spirit, as in- 
dividualized, with the Spirit of eternal truth. By faith we be- 
come mystically one with God, members of his spiritual body. 

The great contest of Hegelianism has been a theological 
contest, questions of this nature absorbing every other in 
the system. The followers of Hegel are themselves divided 
in opinion on these questions. 

The right, the centre, and the left, as these divisions 
are termed, hold views widely divergent from each other. 
The right is the least rationalistic — regards our religious 
consciousness, our intuitive perceptions of religious truth, 
as of equal validity and authority with the deductions of 
reason. Of this class are Gabler, Erdmann and others. 
The centre makes these religious feelings and intuitions of 
secondary importance, uses them to illustrate the logical 



PHILOSOPHY OP GREAT BEITAIK. 



389 



conclusions of reason — no more. Eosen"krans and Mar- 
heineke are of this class. The left discards these entirely, 
is purely pantheistic and rational. Of this class are Strauss, 
Bauer, Feuerbach. The results of this rationalism have 
been disastrous in the extreme. It were unfair, howeyer, 
to charge these results upon Hegel himself, or even upon 
his philosophy as a system, for many most excellent and 
eyangelical men have been firm adherents of that philos- 
ophy. Its tendencies, however, and its final results have 
been most pernicious in Germany and on the continent. 

The lectures of Hegel were published after his death — 
according to his desire — ^by some of his most distinguished 
pupils, and they have also done much to defend and illus- 
trate the system, but it is now on the wane, and what will 
be the next type of German philosophy is known only to 
him who knows the future. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE EECEN^T PHILOSOPHY OP GEE AT BEITAIK. 



Two opposing schools may just now be said to be dis- 
puting the empire of British thought ; that of the Scotch 
philosophy, as represented by Sir William Hamilton, and 
that of the positive, or as it is often termed the material 
philosophy, as represented by John Stuart Mill and Her- 
hert Spencer, as also by Bain, Maudsley, Huxley and others 
of that class, men of great learning and industry, devoted 
chiefly to scientific pursuits. 



tt' 



§ 1. Sir William Hamilton and the Scotch Philosophy. 

This most distinguished of modern metaphysicians was 
born in Glasgow in 1788. He was educated at Baliol Col- 
lege, Oxford ; in 1821 appointed Professor of History in 
the University of Edinburgh, and in 1836 called to the 



390 PHILOSOPHY OF GKEAT BRITAIIT. 

chair of Logic and Metaphysics in the same institution, 
which position he held till his death in 1856. He first 
attracted the attention of the philosophic world by a bril- 
liant and searching review of the philosophy of Cousin, 
which appeared in the Edinburgh Eeview in October, 1829, 
and which drew from Cousin himself the highest encomium. 
This was followed in the succeeding year by an article in 
the same magazine on the philosophy of perception ; and 
three years after by the famous review of Whateley and the 
English logicians. His fame as a critic and philosophical 
writer were now fully established. No one can peruse 
either of these articles and not be struck with these two 
things, — the distinguishing peculiarities of Sir William 
Hamilton, as shown in all his writings, — his immense eru- 
dition, which seems to have laid the whole world of learning 
nnder contribution, and his remarkable power of analysis. 
The most subtle and perplexed problems of thought seem 
to resolve themselves at once into their simple elements 
before his clear and searching glance. With these qualities 
he combines a precision and elegance of style, that com- 
mand the admiration of the reader. Cousin pronounces him 
" the greatest critic of our age ; " (Fragmens Philoso- 
phiques) ; and M. Persse, the French translator of his 
principal essays, says of him "there is not perhaps in 
Europe a man who possesses a knowledge so complete and 
so minute, so profound an understanding of the books, the 
systems, the philosophers of Germany." (Fragmens de 
Philosophic par Sir W. Hamilton.) 

In personal appearance, Hamilton was dignified and 
commanding — I speak from recollection of him as seen at 
his house in High-King street, Edinburgh, in 1854, two 
years before his death — in stature somewhat above ordinary, 
and with a countenance at once prepossessing and impres- 
sive. That lofty brow and that repose of manner seemed 
to indicate a kingly soul conscious of its power ; while yet 



PHILOSOPHY OF GEEAT BRITAIN. 391 i 



y.n 



SL genuine modesty and Christian humility marked all his 
deportment. 

A glance at the prevalent philosophy of Europe at the 
time when Hamilton came upon the stage may enable us 
the better to estimate his position and his influence. At 
the close of the last and the beginning of the present cen- 
tury, as we have seen, the philosophy of Locke, as carried 
out by Condillac in France, and, as to its general princi- 
ples, by Hume in England, had led in its prevalence to 
results which at once awakened and alarmed the public 
mind, both in Great Britain and on the Continent. As the 
result there came naturally, almost necessarily, a reaction. 
Kant in Germany, and Eeid in Scotland, working quite 
independently of each other, but with the same spirit and 
to the same end, had laid the foundations of a different 
philosophy. The fame of the former already, at his death, 
in 1804, filled all Europe ; while the works of the latter, 
though less famous, philosopher, as edited by Jouffroy and 
advocated by Eoyer Collard, in France, were exerting no 
inconsiderable influence on the Continent, as well as in 
England. Such were the influences prevalent in the phil- 
osophic world at the time when Hamilton was first turning 
his attention to the great problems which in all ages have 
profoundly exercised the human mind. Fichte had fol- 
lowed Kant ; Schelling and Hegel were just coming into 
notice ; Cousin in France was attracting the gay and pleas- 
ure-loving Parisians by thousands to his eloquent exposi- 
tions. At this juncture appeared the articles in the Edin- 
burgh Eeview, of which I have already spoken, and which 
indicated the rising of a new star of the first magnitude on 
the philosophic horizon. 

In the main Sir William Hamilton may be said to be a 
disciple of Eeid and the Scotch school ; yet not more a 
disciple of Eeid in reality than of Kant ; and not more of 
either than of Aristotle. These three were his chief 
masters, while he sat also at the feet of all antiquity. It is 



I 



392 PHILOSOPHY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

to be regretted that lie left no work in which his own sys- 
tem is fully and methodically developed. His lectures on 
metaphysics, designed for the class room, and written, 
currente calamo, often on the night preceding their deliv- 
ery, never subsequently rewritten, nor even revised for 
publication by the author, but given to the public since his 
death, cannot, valuable as they are, be regarded as the 
results of his mature and later thought, but rather of his 
earlier and cruder speculations. His dissertations appended 
to his edition of the works of Eeid, contain his more elab- 
orate statements ; yet even in these most admirable essays 
his doctrines are rather indicated than fully and systemati- 
cally developed. 

In common with the great body of modern philosophers 
Hamilton adopts the threefold division of the powers of 
the mind into intellect, sensibility, and will ; classing, 
however, the desires with the will under the head of cona- 
tive powers. Consciousness he regards, not as a distinct 
faculty of the mind, but as involved in all intelligence, and 
the basis of all. We are conscious, he holds, not of self 
alone, but of the external world as well, of the non-ego just 
as really as of the ego. Attention, he regards as a mere 
modification of consciousness ; the voluntary direction of 
consciousness to a particular object. He does not, how- 
ever, make consciousness co-extensive with knowledge, or 
with all our mental states and operations, but holds that 
there are modifications of mind which do not come within 
the sphere of consciousness, latent states and operations of 
which we are not cognizant except in their effects. This 
unconscious mental activity, he maintains, shows itself in 
our acquired habits, as the knowledge of a language or a 
science which we are not at the moment making use of ; 
in acquisitions of former years, which though long since 
passed out of the recollection come back to consciousness 
in certain abnormal states, as in delirium, somnambulism, 
and the like ; and also in the operations of the senses 



PHILOSOPHY OF GKEAT BRITAIIS". 393 

which construct that of which we are conscious out of a 
multitude of impressions of which we are unconscious 
(Lectures pp. 241, 2). 

The doctrine of unconscious perception, or unconscious 
mental modification, first announced by Leibnitz in Grer- 
many and advocated by "Wolff, as also by some recent 
French philosophers, has not received the attention it 
deserves at the hands of English psychologists. Hamilton 
is also the first distinctly to announce the grand law of the 
relation of knowledge to sensation in the act of sense-per- 
ception, a law indicated, but not definitely determined, by 
Kant — that is, that in any act of the senses the element 
of knowledge is in the inverse ratio to the degree of feeling 
or sensation, and vice versa ; that as the one increases the 
other diminishes (Lectures, p. 335). In Logic, Hamilton 
maintains with great earnestness and ability the doctrine, — 
not indeed original with him, but first by him fully set 
forth and defended, — of the quantification of the predicate 
in syllogistic reasoning, a most important modification of 
the Aristotelian syllogism, but one not as yet generally ac- 
cepted by logicians. 

But the great merit of Hamilton, that on which his 
fame as a philosopher must chiefly rest, is his clear and 
complete analysis and full elaboration of the doctrine of 
perception. It had been, as we have seen in the previous 
lectures, the widely received doctrine of the various schools 
of philosophy, however divergent in other respects, that in 
the act of perception the mind is directly cognizant only 
of its own ideas. 

This doctrine of representative perception, as we have 
seen, was boldly assailed by Eeid, who ably maintained the 
opposite doctrine, that of the immediate cognizance of 
external objects by the mind in the act of perception. But 
the true philosophy of perception, though clearly indi- 
cated, was not fully elaborated by Eeid, who failed to dis- 
criminate between different forms of the doctrine of 
17* 



394 PHILOSOPHY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

representative perception. It remained for Hamilton thor- 
oughly to analyze this doctrine and to reduce to a system 
its various modifications. This work he has most thor- 
oughly and completely done. The true doctrine of per- 
ception, according to Hamilton, is that which fully admits 
the veracity of consciousness, and the reality of the anti- 
thesis of mind and matter as the two factors always and 
necessarily given in every act of perception. This doctrine 
he calls natural realism. If we deny the reality of this 
antithesis, we have the theory of absolute identity/ of the 
subject and object in perception. If we admit reality of 
the subject, and derive the object from it, we have idealism. 
If we make the object the real and original factor, and 
derive the subject from it, we have materialisfn. If we 
deny the reality of both, we have nihilism. If with the 
great majority of philosophers from the earliest to the 
latest times we admit the reality of the external or objec- 
tive world, while at the same time we de^iy its immediate 
cognizance in the act of perception, we have the scheme of 
cosmothetic or hypothetic realism. This is only one form of 
the theory of representative perception, as Hamilton very 
clearly shows, a theory unnecessary, not in accordance 
with the facts, and in reality destructive of all evidence of 
the existence of an external world ; since the only evidence 
we have of such existence is the testimony of consciousness, 
in the act of perception, which evidence the theory in ques- 
tion sets aside as unreliable. The doctrine of natural 
realism he shows to be the true and only tenable ground, 
recognizing in every act of perception the direct and imme- 
diate cognizance of self as percipient, and the external 
reality as object perceived ; while the rejection of this 
doctrine in any form, consistently carried out, leads to 
idealism, materialism, or nihilism, according to the shape 
which the denial assumes. 

There is yet another feature of the Hamiltonian phi- 
losophy which should not be entirely passed over in this 



PHILOSOPHY OF GEE AX BRITAIN. 395 

brief outline of his system. I refer to his philosophy of 
the conditioned. All our knowledge is relative, says 
Hamilton. We know and can know anything, only as it 
stands in some way related to our faculties. If these were 
different our knowledge would be different. We know 
and can know only the limited, the definite. To hnow is 
to limit, to define. Hence the wholly unlimited^ the infi- 
nite and absolute, we cannot know nor even conceive. So 
Hamilton ; and his friend and disciple Mansel (Bampton 
lectures — Limits of Religious Thought). True, says Kant ; 
we cannot know the infinite, and absolute, but we can 
conceive them. We may loth know and conceive them, 
says Cousin, as within the sphere of consciousness. No, 
not as coming within the sphere of ordinary consciousness, 
says Schelling ; and yet we may know them by that 
faculty of the higher reason, or intuition, which tran- 
scends the understanding and consciousness. The infinite 
and absolute can neither be known nor conceived, replies 
Hamilton, by the finite human mind ; for this is to limit 
the wholly unlimited ; it is to make the less contain the 
greater. 

The application of this philosophy of the conditioned 
to theology, is obvious and important. It presents to the 
mind the Grod whom we adore as infinite and absolute, as a 
being in reality incomprehensible by the mind that adores 
Him. A God that can be comprehended, says Hamilton, 
is no God ; ^^ a Deity understood would be no Deity at all " 
(Lectures, p. 531). *' Canst thou by searching find out 
God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection ? " 

This philosophy of the conditioned is applied by 
Hamilton to the law of causality, and also to the idea of 
freedom, as accounting for both. We cannot conceive 
the absolute commencement of anything that exists in time ; 
hence we are compelled to the belief that every event lias 
and must have a cause. It is the result of our inability to 
think the unconditioned. For the same reason we can- 



396 PHILOSaPHT OF GREAT BRITAIN-. 

not conceive a volition wholly nndetermined, or a cause 
not itself caused. Freedom is therefore inconceivable. 
But so likewise is its opposite, necessity. We Tcnoiv that 
we are free ; consciousness assures us that we are so ; but 
Jiow such a thing as moral liberty is possible to man or 
Grod, we are utterly unable to understand. (Wight's 
Philosophy of Sir W. Ham., pp. 508-512.)* 

§ 2. The Positive or Material Philosophy, as represented 
BY J. Stuart Mill, Spencer and Bain. 

This phase or tendency of modern speculative thought, 
empirical in psychology, and utilitarian in ethics, num- 
bers among its followers not a few of the ablest and most 
eminent British thinkers ; among whom we may rank 
first and foremost, John Stuart Mill, son of James Mill, a 
philosophical writer of some repute of the utilitarian 
school. J. S. Mill is well and widely known as a writer 
on logic and political economy, in which departments of 
science his works have won just renown. In metaphysics 
he is best known by his " Examination of Sir William 
Hamilton's Philosophy," a very able and searching critique 
of the system of that philosopher. The advocates of the 
empirical philosophy, whether of the positive t3rpe of 
Comte and Spencer, or the materialists of the school of 
Hobbes, Hume, Priestley, found themselves, as a matter 
of self-defence, under the necessity of attacking the 
authority and destroying the prestige of Sir William Ham- 
ilton as an acknowledged leader of British thought. He 
was too formidable and too earnest an opponent to be let 
alone. Eesolutely and earnestly the foremost champion 
of the opposing system, J. S. Mill, girded himself for the 

* For a fuller discussion of Hamilton's philosophy than could be 
given in these pages, and especially for a consideration of his theory 
of causality and of freedom, I must refer the reader to my " Studies 
in Philosophy and Theology," article. Philosophy of Sir W. 
Hamilton. 



PHILOSOPHY OF GREAT BRIT A IK. 397 

attack. That he has succGGded in demolishing the system 
of his great antagonist can hardly be claimed, even by his 
ardent admirers ; while on the other hand even his oppo- 
nents must concede the fairness and candor, as well as the 
ability, of his attack. 

In common with all the philosophers of the empirical 
or sensational school, as Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Priestley, 
Bentham, Hartley, Paley, and others of more recent fame, 
Mill derives all our ideas from experience, denying all 
innate or connate ideas, and a priori truth. All our 
knowledge comes primarily from the senses and is the 
result of experience. Our ideas of right and wrong, of 
truth, beauty, duty, honor and the like, are of empirical 
origin. Nothing is true necessarily and a priori. In 
this he stands opposed not only to such thinkers as Des- 
cartes, Leibnitz, Kant, Cousin, Coleridge, and others of 
the so called transcendental school, but to the Cambridge 
Platonists as well, and to the sturdy common sense of the 
Scotch philosophers, Eeid, Stewart, Mackintosh, and others 
of that type. But to no one of all these does the empiri- 
cal or sensational philosophy stand more directly and 
squarely opposed than to Sir William Hamilton. No one 
has more distinctly and earnestly contended for the 
supreme importance in philosophy of a priori ideas and 
convictions. It is one of the distinguishing features of 
his system, as the denial of it is of that of his opponent. 
This denial is complete and thorough-going. It is only 
by experience that we know that two straight lines cannot 
enclose a space, or that the whole is greater than a part, 
or that one action is right and another wrong. And as 
experience is the source of our ideas of this sort, so expe- 
diency or utility is the ground of morals, the reason why 
we come to pronounce one action right and another the 
reverse. 

With respect to the reality of our knowledge, the doc- 
trines of Mill are essentially opposed to those of the Ham- 



398 PHILOSOPHY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

iltonian or Scotch philosophy. All our knowledge, says 
Hamilton, is relative, in the sense that it stands related to 
our faculties of knowing ; but it is none the less real and 
true knowledge. All our knowledge is relative, says Mill, 
in this higher and further sense, that it is merely the 
report of our faculties as to what seems to be so and so ; 
whether the thing is what it seems to be, whether our 
knowledge is real or only apparent and illusive, we are 
not and cannot be certain. The only thing certain is that 
we have such and such impressions ; things seem to us so 
and so. To us, constituted as we are, two and two are 
four, and a straight line is the shortest distance between 
two points. But because it is so in our experience, it 
does not follow that it is so in the nature of things ; be- 
cause it is so to us, it does not follow that it is so everv- 
where and always. In other parts of the universe, and 
to beings otherwise constituted, all this may be changed ; 
two and two may be five, or a part may be equal to the 
whole ; and their knowledge may be as correct and as real 
as ours. All certitude and reality of truth seems to be by 
this doctrine utterly destroyed. We are out on a wide sea 
of conjecture, and can know nothing positively. 

As regards the perception of external things by the 
senses, Mr. Mill of course rejects the doctrine of natural 
realism, or the immediate cognizance of the external world 
in the act of perception, which is the distinguishing feature 
of the Hamiltonian system. We have impressions and 
sensations — that is all. From these we infer the existence 
of an external something capable of producing these im- 
pressions. It is an inference, a connection forced upon us 
by our sensations, not a direct and positive knowledge. 
Matter is "a permanent possibility of sensation," as he 
expresses it. In this, he is even more an idealist than 
Berkeley, for not even raind is here given as a real entity. 

As to the idea of, and belief in, a personal God as first 
cause of all things, Mr. Mill says nothing definitely, but 



PHILOSOPHY OF GKEAT BRITAI3S". 



199 



leaves it an open question, on which the positive philosophy 
may take one side or the other without detriment to its 
principles. He thinks, however, that there may be a relig- 
ion without a belief in the existence of God (Critique on 
Comte, p. 133). 

As to the freedom of the will, Mill assails Hamilton's 
theory. Moral responsibility does not, he thinks, involve 
freedom of the will, as Hamilton maintains. The feeling 
of accountability is to be traced not to the possession of 
freedom, but to the fact that the evil-doer is liable to be 
called to account, and that he knows the punishment which 
awaits him is just and well deserved. Volition follows its 
moral causes just as physical events follow their physical 
causes. He does not aflBrm that they must do so ; only 
that they always do. He disapproves the use of the word 
necessity to express this relation, and understands by that 
term, when he employs it, as do Edwards and most neces- 
sitarians, the simple certainty of events. (Examination of 
Hamilton, vol. H. pp. 281, 300.) Necessity is to be care- 
fully distinguished from fatalism, which teaches that a supe- 
rior power overrules our destiny, and that our characters 
are formed for us, not ly us. 

"^ In ethics Mr. Mill is of the utilitarian school. Virtue 
is an enlightened and refined expediency. The principle 
of greatest happiness is the ruling motive of human 
conduct. 

It need hardly be remarked, that the system now 
sketched, — as in fact any scheme that derives all our ideas 
from sensation, and makes our knowledge relative in the 
sense above explained, must inevitably do, — fails to solve 
the great problems of human thought, or even to account 
for some of the most important mental phenomena. If, as 
Mr. Mill holds, the mind is a mere series of feelings tend- 
ing to associate according to certain laws, how is it that this 
series of feelings recognizes itself as a series, and as having 
an existence in the past ? In other words, how is the fact 






] 



J 



400 PHILOSOPHY OF GPvEAT BKTTAII^. 

of memory to be explained ? And whence tliese laws of 
association which govern the series ? And whence the 
whole class of our moral feelings and judgments, the sense 
of duty or obligation ? Whence this must, that plays so 
important a role in the mental phenomena ? Here the 
philosophy in question Avholly fails. It cannot explain by 
any laws or principles of association, this grand character- 
istic feature of our moral nature, *^the conversion," to use 
the language of Masson, *'of the prodest into the oportet ; 
the evolution of the participle in dus out of never so much 
of the past participle passive."* 

If we regard Mr. Mill as, in some sense, the leading 
representative of the positive and material school of thought 
in Grreat Britain, at the present day, it must be conceded 
that Herlert Spencer ranks hardly second to him as an ad- 
vocate of the same essential jDrinciple. Mr. Spencer's writ- 
ings cover a wider range of topics, and are perhaps, even 
more widely read, in this country at least, than are those 
of Mr. Mill. With various modifications, the philosophy 
of Mr. Spencer is, in its essential features, substantially 
the same as that already sketched. In common with Mill, 
he denies all primitive, universal and a priori truth, mak- 
ing all such or so called truths, as for example the axioms 
of geometry, to be only the inductions of our experience. 
He differs from Mill as to the ultimate test of belief, which 
he makes to be the inconceivableness of the opposite, or 
the inability to think the alleged truth to be false. With 
him, as with Mr. Mill, what we call knowledge or cogni- 
tion, is simply the relation subsisting among our feelings. 
We know and can know only phenomena ; of the hidden 
causes of phenomena we know and can know nothing. He 
divides our cognitions, or intellectual powers, into Presen- 
tative — as localizing sensations — Presentative-Representa- 

* For a more complete statement and criticism of this system the 
reader is referred to the Author's '' Studies in Philosophy and Theol- 
ogy," article " Mill versus Hamilton." 



PHILOSOPHY OF GEEAT BRITAIN. 401 

tive, as when the sight of an object calls to mind its va- 
rious qualities ; — Representative, as memory ; and Re-Rep- 
resentative — as the higher abstractions of mathematics, 
designated by symbols. His classification of the emotions 
runs parallel to that of the intellectual powers. 

With the same school essentially, may be classed Alex- 
ander Bain, professor of Logic and Philosophy in the Uni- 
versity of Aberdeen, though in some respects he seems to 
approach more nearly the idealism of Berkeley, than the 
materialism of the positive philosophy. He treats the 
mind from a physiological stand-point throughout. His 
division of the faculties is into I. Antecedents of Intellect, 
1. muscularity, 2. the senses ; II. The Intellect, with its 
three functions, 1. discrimination or difference, 2. agree- 
ment or similarity, 3. retentiveness. The physical sensa- 
tions of pleasure and pain are classed with the mental 
emotions of fear, love, etc., under the general designa- 
tion of the feelings, every feeling having its physical as well 
as its mental side. No distinctive place is assigned among 
the feelings or emotions to the moral faculty. In common 
with Mill and Herbert Spencer, Bain argues at length 
against the existence of innate or intuitive ideas. Matter, 
and mind, are distinguished as the two great departments 
of our knowledge. Object and Subject, the former distin- 
guished by the quality of extension, the latter by the absence 
of that quality. As regards the perception of an external 
object. Professor Bain is not far removed from the position 
of Berkeley when he affirms that in ascribing separate 
and independent existence to the object, "we not only 
forget that the object qualities are still modes of conscious 
experience, but are guilty besides of converting an abstrac- 
tion into a reality" (Mental Science, p. 202). " The pre- 
vailing doctrine is that a tree is something in itself, apart 
from all perception ; that by its luminous emanations it 
impresses our minds and is then perceived ; the percep- 
tion being an effect, and the unperceived tree the cause. 



402 PHILOSOPHY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

But the tree is known only through perception. What it 
may be anterior to, or independent of, perception we can- 
not tell" (Mental Science, p. 198). 

As to the will, the law of causality reigns there no less 
than in the realm of physical events ; freedom is an illu- 
sion and a myth. 

§ 3. — Certain Later Forms of Materialism. 

Of late, Materialism has assumed a more direct and 
distinctly avowed form in the writings of modern scientists 
of note. The doctrines announced by Cabanis, and en- 
dorsed by Vogt, that "the brain secretes thought as the 
liver secretes bile," or, as expressed by Moleschott, that 
thought is a motion of matter, and by Buclmer, that 
'^mental activity is a function of the cerebral substance," 
"emitted by the brain as sounds are by the mouth, as 
music is by the organ," has not been without its adherents 
in England. Spencer says : " That no idea or feeling arises, 
save as a result of some physical force expended in produc- 
ing it, is fast becoming a common-place of science " (First 
Principles, 217). The tendency to resolve the phenomena 
of thought into material agency, and to identify matter and 
mind as essentially one and the same thing under different 
phases, is quite marked among English scientists. Pro- 
fessor Tyndall disclaims materialism, and believes in the 
existence of mind as associated with the phenomena of 
matter ; but affirms that "thought, as exercised by us, has 
its correlative in the physics of the brain," and considers 
it probable " that for every fact of consciousness, whether 
in the domain of sense, of thought, or of emotion, a cer- 
tain definite molecular condition, is set up in the brain ; 
that this relation of physics to consciousness is invariable, 
so that, given the state of the brain, the corresponding 
thought or feeling might be inferred" (Address before 
the British Association). Huxley in like manner declares 
himself no materialist ; but it is on the ground that neither 



PHILOSOPHY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



403 



matter nor mind are to be regarded as substances, apart 
from our own sensations and impressions. " What after 
all do we know of this terrible ^matter/ except as a name 
for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our 
own consciousness ? And what do we know of this ' spirit, 
over whose threatened extinction by matter a great lamen- 
tation is arising, like that which was heard at the death of 
Pan, except that it is also a name for an unknown and 
hypothetical cause or condition of the states of conscious- 
ness ?" (Physical Basis of Life.) 

All that we know, in other words, is simply our own 
mental states and impressions ; matter and mind, self and 
not-self are mere hypotheses devised to explain those states 
and impressions. " 'Nor is our knowledge of anything we 
know or feel more or less than a knowledge of states of con- 
sciousness." "Strictly speaking, the existence of a self 
and a not-self are hypotheses by which we account for the 
facts of consciousness." It is evident that if all real knowl- 
edge of an external world vanishes on these principles, so 
also does all real knowledge of the internal or spiritual 
world, as well. We stand, not with Berkeley merely, but 
with Hume. Yet in this sense, at least, must Huxley be 
content to take his place with the materialists ; he makes 
use of a terminology entirely materialistic, and he estab- 
lishes a purely physical basis for the phenomena of mind. 
*^ All vital action," he declares, "is the result of the mole- 
cular forces of the protoplasm which displays it." "Even 
those manifestations of intellect, of feeling and of will, 
which we rightly name the higher faculties," are not excep- 
tions to the rule, but are known, to every one but the sub- 
ject of them, only as " transitory changes in the relative po- 
sitions of the parts of the body." (Physical Basis of Life.) 

Perhaps no modern English writer, however, has more 
distinctly advocated the doctrines of materialism as regards 
the philosophy of the mind, than Dr. Maudsley, an English 
physician of reading and culture, who, as superintendent 



404 PHILOSOPHY OF GHEAT BRITAIN. 

of the Manchester Royal Lunatic Asyhim, has had special 
opportunities for the study of abnormal conditions of the 
mind, and has devoted particular attention to psychology 
in connection with these conditions. In a work of much 
ability, entitled Physiology and Pathology of Mind, he traces 
the various forms of mental derangement to pathological 
causes, and shows the influence of a disordered brain upon 
the operations of the mind. From this he is naturally, 
though incorrectly, led to the conclusion — a conclusion not 
warranted by the facts adduced — that as disordered and 
abnormal states of mind may be traced to physical causes, 
so all psychological states and processes may be accounted 
for in like manner. Thought, feeling, volition, are certain 
modifications of the brain, certain processes '^ which take 
place in the minute cells of the cortical layers." So deli- 
cate, however, are these processes as to be quite beyond our 
power of investigation in the present resources of science. 
The system thus developed is wholly and avowedly material. 
The doctrine is not that the brain cells are the organ of 
thought, as all admit, but that they manufacture thought, 
emotion, and the various operations of what we call the 
mind. This is their function as really as it is that of the 
certain other organs to secrete bile, or gastric juice. To 
think and to feel is as truly the function and province of 
the brain cells, as it is that of the stomach to digest food. 

These various mental operations we are to study not by 
the old method of consciousness, but by observation, not 
subjectively, but objectively, by careful investigation of 
the states of the brain and nervous system as affected by 
these processes. Self-consciousness he regards as a method 
wholly unreliable. If the mind is for any reason disor- 
dered, the consciousness partakes of the disorder, and 
reports accordingly, that {^falsely. The man is conscious 
that he is a king ; or that he is made of glass ; and the 
like. It cannot therefore be trusted. (Physiology, etc., 
p. 35.) 



PHILOSOPHY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 405 

This however is wholly a mistake. Consciousness never 
testifies falsely. Its office is simply to report our own 
present sensations and impressions, not to vouch for the 
correctness of those impressions. And this it does, and 
does correctly. It affirms that we/ee? warm or cold, not 
that we are so ; it says that we think and believe ourselves to 
be such and such personages, not that we are so. Even the 
most decided sceptics have admitted the testimony of con- 
sciousness as valid and trustworthy ; nor is it possible on 
any other principle to lay the foundation of any system 
whatever, not even of materialism, or nihilism, since what- 
ever we affirm or deny, the truth of our affirmation or 
denial must rest ultimately on the veracity of con- 
sciousness. 

Dr. Maudsley denies the unity of the soul. It is one 
only in the sense in which a tree or a house is one, by the 
combination and co-operation of the several parts of which 
it is composed. It is one, only as the brain cells co-oper- 
ate to produce a given effect, and the ceasing thus to act, 
the disorder or dissolution of the cells which constitute 
mental activity, would be the dissolution of that unity, and 
in fact of the soul itself. This is materialism in its most 
direct and decided form. 



THE EKD. 



INDEX OF PRINCIPAL TOPICS. 



Abelard. — Principal data of Ms history, 210. His doctrines, 211. 
Opponent of nominalism and of Roscellinus, 212. Tendency 
to rationalistic yiews, 212. 

Academy, The New. — ^In its main features Platonic, with decided 
tendency to Scepticism, 190. Founder of the school, Arcesilaus, 
191. His successor, Cameades, 191. Subsequent fortunes, 191. 

Anaximander. — Friend and successor of Thales, 12, First of the 
mechanists, 12. His elementary principle, abstract, 13. His 
theory of the universe, 14. Darwinian origin of man, 14. The 
Noua as first mover or creator, wanting, 15. First to use the 
term 'Ap;^^ for the Principle of things, 15. A fatalist, 16. As- 
tronomer and mathematician, 16. 

Anaximenes.—E^poch. and general system, 17. His first principle, the 
air or ether, 17. Theory of the universe as developed from 
this, 18. Relation of his philosophy to that of Thales, 17. 

Anaxagoras. — History and character, 31. An astronomer and natu- 
ral philosopher, 32. Mechanist in theory, 33. Chaos the primi- 
tive state, 33. Atomic theory, 34, Mind the moving and pro- 
ducing cause of all, 34. Movement circular, 34. Anticipations 
of modern science, 35. Reason and the senses, 36. 

Ancient Philosophy — As distinguished from modern, 1. Chief divis- 
ions, 1. Begins with Greek philosophy, 2. For what reasons, 3. 

Anselm. — Period and history, 211. Bases knowledge on faith, 211. 
Realism, 211. Argument for divine existence, 211. 

Antisthenes. — The Cynic, 97. Character and doctrines, 97, Relation 
to the Socratic philosophy, 99. Pleasure to be resolutely avoided 
as an absolute evil, 99. Virtue consists lar^ly in this, 99 
System purely selfish and morose, 100. 



408 INDEX OF PKINCIPAL TOPICS. 

Arcesilaus. — Founder of New Academy, 190. Pliilosopliy of ne- 
science, 191. DiflFers from the sceptics in what respects, 191. 

Aristippus. — The Cyrenaic, 93. Personal character, 94. His system 
Socratic in its starting-point, 94. Happiness the great aim of 
life — but happiness consists in pleasure, 95. Virtue and vice 
indifferent except as contributing to this end, 96. Reason the 
regulating principle, 96. 

Aristotle. — As compared with Plato, 132. Life, 133. Character as 
a philosopher, as sketched by Ritter, 135. General system, 137. 
What he undertakes to do, 139. Division of philosophy into 
theoretical and practical, 139. The First Philosophy, 139. Aris- 
totle's Logic, 140. His Metaphysics, 143. The self-moving cause 
or Deity of Aristotle, 144. His Physics, 148. Psychology, 158. 
Rejects the Platonic theory of ideas and of pre-existence, 154. 
His Ethics and Politics, 157. 

Bacon, Francis. — Personal history, 217. Method and principle, 220. 
Chief works, 222. Plan of the Instauratio Magna, 224. The De 
Augmentis, 228. The Novum Organum, 223. His chief devo- 
tion to natural science, 225. His defects, 226. His influence, 228. 

Bain. — System of mental science, 401. Physiological stand-point, 
401. Questions the reality of external objects apart from per- 
ception, 401. 

Berkeley. — Relation to preceding systems, 308. Life and character, 
308. System, 309. Denial of material existence, 310. How led 
to this, 311. Admits a material world in what sense, 312. An 
absolute idealist, 313. 

Brown, Dr. Thomas. — Life, 338. Character, 340. System, 342. His 
doctrine of perception, 343. A representationist, 344. Classifica- 
tion of mental faculties, 344. The mind a series of states, 345. 
His theory of cause and effect, 344. Theory of virtue, 345. 

Carneades. — Of the New Academy, 191. Noted for eloquence, 192. 
Advocates both sides of every question, 192. Attacks the Stoic 
doctrine of God, and of necessity, 192. Justice conventional, 
not natural, 192, Theory of probability, 193. 

Cyrenaic Pliilosopliy. — Its character and principles, 93. Pleasure the 
great aim of life, 94. Virtue of use as conducing to that, 94. 
Reason the regulating principle, 96. Its founder, Aristippus, 93. 



INDEX OF PRINCIPAL TOPICS. 



409 



Cynic Philosophy. — Its character and doctrines, 97. Antisthenes 
its founder, 97. Opposition to pleasure in every form, 98. 

Descartes. — His period, 229. State of pliilosopliy at the time, 230. 
His life and character, 231. His system, 235. Analysis of " the 
Method " and the Meditations, 235. Argument for divine exist- 
ence, 236. Characteristic features of the system, 238. Effect of 
the man and his works, 242. Tendency of the views, 242. Des- 
cartes proficient in natural philosophy and mathematics, 244. 
Compared with Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, 245. 

Diodorus Cronos. — The Megarian, 102. Fallacies of, 102. Motion 
impossible, 103. 

Diogenes of Apollonia. — Last of Ionian dynamists, 27. Date, 27. 
First principle, ether or air, 28. How led to this, 28. The 
arrangement and order of the universe ascribed to a presiding 
intelligence, or soul of the world; not a personal being, 29. 

Diogenes of Sinope. — The Cynic, 98. Pupil of Antisthenes, 98. Re- 
sembles his master in character and principles, 100. 

Eckhart of Strashurg. — Attempt to revive the Platonic philosophy 
in the 14th century, 216. 

Empedocles. — The Eleatic. Birth-place and history, 58. Principal 
work, a poem on Nature, 59. Principle of love and hate, 60. 
The sphere, 61. Four elements, 63. Senses not reliable, 63. 

Epicurus. — Date and history, 170. Founds a school, 171. Its char- 
acter, 171. The character and teachings of Epicurus him- 
self, 171. Strict temperance and frugality, 17L Tendency of his 
doctrines, 172. 

Epicurean System. — Makes philosophy the art of living well, the 
science of the useful, or of happiness ; discards logic and 
science proper, and makes ethics the chief study ; makes 
pleasure the chief element of happiness ; but not the pleasures 
of sense ; superiority of mental and spiritual pleasures, 170. 
Virtue the way to highest happiness, 173. Philosophy of sen- 
sation and perception, 174. The soul corporeal and not immor- 
tal, 175. Theology of Epicurus, 176. 

Euhulides, — Megarian, 102. Fallacies ; all change and motion shown 
to be impossible, 102. 

EucUd of Megara. — Disciple of Socrates ; personal incident in his 



410 INDEX OE PRINCIPAL TOPICS. 

history, 100. Eleatic tendencies ; system negative in character, 
101. Fallacies, 102. 

Fichte. — Relation to Kant and Reinhold, 364, Life, 365. Carries out 
to its extreme the idealism of Kant, 368. The me only exists, 
369. The external phenomena which Kant admits as having 
real existence, are only our own creations and imaginations, 
or exist, if at all, beyond the sphere of consciousness, 370. 
Method iu which he establishes these principles, 371. Com- 
plete idealism, 373. Defects of the system, 374. Apparent 
Atheism, 374. Subsequent modifications, 375. 

German Philoso'phy — as represented by Kant and his successors. 
Chapters XIV., XV., XVL, 347, 363, 377. 

Oorgias the Sophist. — History and tenets, 67. 

Greek Philosophy. — The beginning of ancient philosophy, not in 
reality, but only as known to us, 195. Division into periods, 
and schools, 196. 

Hamilton, Sir William. — Sketch of life, 389. Personal appearance, 
390. State of philosophy at the time he appeared, 391. Phil- 
osophical articles in Edinburgh Review, 390. Disciple of Reid, 
Kant and Aristotle, 391. Lectures on metaphysics, 393. Doc- 
trine of consciousness, 393. Latent mental states, 393. Relation 
of knowledge to sensation in act of perception, 393. The law 
first definitely stated, 392. Doctrine of perception, 394. Natural 
realism, 394. Diiferent theories, 394. Doctrine of the conditioned, 
395. The doctrine applied to theology ; to the law of causality, 
also ; and to freedom of will, 395. Doctrine of primitive, a 
priori, ideas, 395. 

Heraclitus. — Era and personal history, 19. Work obscure, 20. A 
dynamist, 22. First principle fire, from which by transfor- 
mation all things proceed, 23. Harmony from combination 
of opposites, 25. Natural philosophy of Heraclitus, 26. Senses 
not reliable, 25. Reason the sole criterion, 26. 

Hegel. — How related to Fichte and Schelling, 382. Personal 
sketch, 383. Philosophy, 383. Begins with pure nothing, dis- 
cards experience, and makes pure thought the sole existence, 
ideas the only realities, 385. Threefold movement in the pro- 
cess of knowledge, 386. Corresponding division of Logic; 
doctrine of Being, of Essence, and of Notion, 386. Philosophy 
of Nature, 387. Philosophy of Mind, 387. Theology, 388. 



INDEX OF PRINCIPAL TOPICS. 



411 



Sobbes. — Relation to the Baconian philosophy, 280. Personal his- 
tory, 281. Style, 281. Character, 282. Main features of his 
philosophy, 282. Sensationalism, 282. Nothing in itself good or 
evil, 285. Civil polity, 286. 

Hume. — Sketch of personal history, 314. A sceptic rather than a 
dogmatist, 316. Assumes the premises of Locke and Berkeley, 
and carries out these principles to their logical conclusions, 
317. Result, nihilism, 317. Admits the subjective reality of 
our impressions, 318. 

Huxley. — In what sense and to what extent a materialist, 402. 

Idea — Platonic theory of, 110. 
" Denial of innate, by Locke, 295. 

Italian School. — The Pythagorean system, 38. Its founder and 

tenets, 42. 
Ionian Philosophy — General character of, 5. Different schools, 6. 

Jewish-Alexandrian Philosophy. — Philo, 202. Blending of Judaism 
and Platonism, 202. 

Kant, Immanuel. — Life and works, 848, Character and habits, 350. 
Relation to previous systems, 352. A priori or universal 
truths, 354. Analysis of the Critique of Pure Reason, 356. A 
priori elements of the sensibility, of the understanding, and 
of the reason, 357. Immortality of the soul, and existence of 
God, not capable of proof from reason ; to be known only from 
consciousness of our own moral nature, 358. Merits and defects 
of this system, 360. 

Leibnitz. — Life and habits, 270. Adopts in the main the Cartesian 
philosophy ; but with modifications, 273. First truths, 274. 
Ideas not innate ; yet not all from sensation, 275. Ultimate 
criteria of truth 276. Monadology, 277. Pre-established har- 
mony, 277. Philosophical necessity, 278. Optimism, 278. Cal- 
vinistic aspect of the doctrine, 278. 

Locke. — Personal history and character, 288. Essay on Human 
Understanding — how composed, 291. Style, wide circulation 
293. Ground-plan of the system, 294. Experience the basis of 
all our knowledge, 295. Observation and consciousness the 
true method, 296. Ideas simple and compound, 296. Of the 
former, some represent primary, others secondary qualities of 
objects ; knowledge of the latter wholly subjective, 297. 
Locke's use of the term reflection 297. Does not refer all our 



413 INDEX OF PRINCIPAL TOPICS. 

knowledge to sensation as its origin, 397. Twofold source, 298. 
Criticism of Cousin and Morell, 298. Use of the term idea, 299. 
Does not distinguish between the occasion and cause of an idea, 
300. Ideas not all from sensation and reflection, 300. Is the 
system subversive of moral distinctions, 301. Tendency of 
the system, 303. Successors, 305. Mandeville, Hartley, and the 
French philosophers of this school, Condillac, Condorcet, 305. 

Logic— Oi Aristotle, 141. Of Bacon, 223. Of Plato, 111. Of the 

Stoics, 180. 

Materialism, 394. Later forms, 402. Tyndall, 402. Huxley, 402. 
Dr. Maudsley, 403. 

Malebranche. — Contemporary with Spinoza, 259. Personal history 
259. Impressed by writings of Descartes, 260. Character as a 
writer, 261. Works, 261. Religious element, 261. General out- 
line of system, 262. Cartesian in principle, 262. Analysis of the 
"Inquiry after Truth," 263. Theory of ideas, 263. Theory of 
vision in God, 266. Will and desire synonymous, 267. Virtue 
the love of order ; consists in intention — a principle now first 
clearly announced, 268. Theory of existence of evil, 268. 

Maudsley, Dr. — Pathology of mind, 403. Materialistic views, 404. 
Consciousness rejected as method of mental investigation, 404. 
Unity of the soul denied, 404. Dissolution of the brain-cells 
involves destruction of the soul, 404. 

Method.— Oi Aristotle, 143. Of Plato, 109. Of Socrates, 86. Of Des- 
cartes, 232. 

Medieval Philosophy. — See Scholastic Philosophy, 207. 

Mill, J. 8. — Opponent of Hamilton, 396. Derives all ideas from 
experience, 397. Nothing true a priori, 397. Reality of our 
knowledge called in question ; only sure that we have such and 
such impressions, 397. Natural realism rejected ; the external 
world not immediately known in perception but only inferred, 
398. Theology doubtful, 399, Freedom of will not admitted ; 
philosophical necessity, 400. Defects of the system, 400. 

Neo-Platonism. — Attempt to revive the ancient philosophy, 203. 
Epoch, 203. Chief teachers, 203. Plotinus, 203. Porphyry, 203. 
Iamblichus,203. Proclus,204. Tendency to mysticism, 204. Pla- 
tonic basis, 204. Theory of emanation, 205. Doctrine of God, 204 

New Academy. — Teachers and tenets, 190. 

Nominalism and Realism. — Dispute concerning, 394. 



IKDEX OF PRIl^CIPAL TOPICS. 



413 



Parmenides. — Epoch, 51. History, 51. Tenets, 51. Discredits tlie 
evidence of sense, 51. Reason alone reliable, 51. Poem on 
Nature 51. Fundamental position, 53. The All identical with 
Intelligence, or Thought and Being one, 52. View of man, 53. 

Philo, the Jew. — Descent, 201, Judaism and Platonism blended, 201. 
God the only true existence ; employs ministering agencies, 202. 
Chief of these, Wisdom or the Son, 202. Logos doctrine ; 
differs from that of John, 203. 

Plato. — Life and character, 104. Method, 109. Ideas, 116. Psychol- 
ogy, 104. Division of philosophy into logic, physics, and ethics, 
111. Logic or dialectic of Plato, 111. Soul twofold, the sensi- 
tive and the rational. 111. Pre-existent, 111. Reminiscence, 111. 
Theology of Plato, 119. Ethics, 120. Basis of the Platonic ethics, 
120. Socratic theory of virtue as a science, 120. Estimate of 
pleasure, 121. Virtue of fourfold character, 122. Politics of 
Plato, 124. The individual merged in the state, 124. Family 
relations ignored, 124. Education by the state, 125. Orders of 
society, 125. Physics of Plato ; world-soul ; image of God ; evil 
inherent in matter; resemblance to Mosaic narrative, 131. 

Positive Philosophy — as represented by Mill, Spencer, Bain, 296. 
Derives all our knowledge from experience; denies a priori and 
universal ideas ; makes knowledge relative and uncertain ; phe- 
nomena alone capable of being known, 298. Utility the basis 
of morals, 299. The will not endowed with freedom, 302. 

Pre-existenee — Of the soul, 43. Platonic doctrine of, 114. 

Porphyry. — Of the Neo-Platonic school, 203. Disciple of Plotinus 
203. History, 203. 

Plotinus. — Neo-Platonic, 203. Pupil of Ammonius Saccas, 203. 
Historic data, 203. 

Proclus. Most distinguished of later Neo-Platonists, 203. Life 
and work, 204. 

Protagoras. — Sophist, 64. Personal history, 64. Doctrines, 67. All 
truth relative, 68. Man the measure of all things, 68. Every- 
thing true of every-thing, 70. Whatever seems true is so, 71. 

Pythagoras. — Of the Italian school, 37. Period and history, 37. 
Fabulous stories, 37. His school, 38. Makes number and time 
the first principles of all things, 40. Deity is number, 42. The 



414 IKDEX OF PRINCIPAL TOPICS. 

Kosmos springs from number, 43. Soul pre- existent. 43. Trans- 
migration, 43. Reason, intelligence, sense, the tliree attri- 
butes of the soul, 43. Rules of life ascetic, and morality 
severe, 43. 

Beid, Dr. TJiomas. — Life, 319. Inquiry into the Human Mind, 831. 
Connection with Plume's treatise on Human Nature, 333. Cor- 
respondence with Hume, 333. Doctrines of Reid, 334. Phi- 
losophy of common sense, 837. Refutation of the common 
theory of perception, 337. Merit of this questioned by Dr. 
Brown; vindicated by Hamilton, 338. Defects of Reid; makes 
consciousness a distinct faculty; fails to distinguish definitely 
between true and false doctrines of perception, 880. The true 
doctrine, 333. 

Reinliold. — Sketch of life, 868. Seeks to give completeness to the 
philosophy of Kant, 364. Bases knowledge on the representa- 
tive faculty, 364. 

Romans. — Philosophy among, 195. Different systems prevalent, 195. 
Cicero, 196. 

Roscellinus. — Advocate of nominalism, 813. Applies it to the doc- 
trine of the Trinity, 313. Compelled to retract, 313. 

Sceptics. — The Greek ; philosophy of ; chief teachers. Pyrrho of 
Elis, and Timon of Athens, 169. Tenets ; virtue is happiness ; 
all things in themselves indifferent ; nothing certain ; nothing 
to choose between one thing and another, 170. 

Schelling, Frederic William. — Life, 877. Philosophy of the abso- 
lute, 377. God the one great absolute ; known by intuition, 378. 
All things the development of this absolute principle, 379. 
Law of this development in its three movements or potencies, 
879. This law applied to nature ; applied to mind, 880. Pan- 
theism, 383. Subsequent modification of the system, 883. 

ScJiolastic Philosophy of the Middle Ages. — Its general character, 
307. Chief names — Johannes Scotus ; Roscellinus ; Anselm ; 
Abelard ; Albert the Great ; Thomas Aquinas ; Duns Scotus, 309. 

Scotch Philosophy — as represented by Reid, Stewart, Brown ; Rela- 
tion of, to preceding doctrines, 833. Life and doctrines of Reid, 
334. Of Stewart, 883. Of Brown, 338. 

Socrates. — Life and personal character, 74. Military experience, 75. 
Integrity in public life, 75. Personal appearance, 77. Trial and 



INDEX OF PRIJS^CIPAL TOPICS. 



415 



death, 83. Doctrines, 83. General character of his philosophy 
ethical, 83. The Socratic method, 86. Socratic ethics, 87. 
Virtue-intelligence, 89. Socratic theology, 90. Immortality 
inferred from imperfection of present state, 91. 

Socratic Period of Philosopliy. — Relation to earlier systems. Gen- 
eral character ethical ; yet not wholly so, 94. Recognition of 
self-consciousness, 94. 

Sophists. Important mission, 64. Causes which produced, 64. Gen- 
eral character, 67. Chief teachers, 67. Protagoras, history and 
tenets, 68. Gorgias ; life ; doctrmes, 68. Sophists of use in 
philosophy, 71. Call attention to the subjective phase of 
being — and to the distinction between sense and intellect, 71. 

Spencer, Herbert. — Positive philosophy, 400. In substantial accord- 
ance with J. S. Mill, 400. Denies a priori and universal truth, 
400. Ultimate test of truth, the inconceivableness of the oppo- 
site, 401. Knowledge relative, 401. Can know only phenomena, 
402. Classification of mental powers, 402. 

Spinoza. — Personal history, 246. Character, 247. Principal works, 
250. Style and method of reasoning, 251. Outline of system 
252. Analysis of "the Mhics," 2od. Definitions, 253. Proposi- 
tions that follow from these, 254. Falsity of the principles, 256. 
Spinoza a fatalist, 257. In what sense a pantheist, 257. Tribute 
of Cousin, 257. 

Stoics, — Leaders, Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, 177. Opposition to 
prevailing degeneracy, 179. System more practical than the 
Platonic, looking to the common duties of life, 179. Divide 
philosophy into Logic, Physics, Ethics, 179. Logic of the 
Stoics, origin of ideas from sensation, as Locke ; doctrine of 
perception, categories four; criterion of truth, as Descartes, 
180. Physics; God pervading the universe as the soul the 
body ; development and final conflagration of the world ; doc- 
trine of existence of evil ; soul not immortal ; soul acts freely, 
yet by fate, 182. Ethics; nature the ground of right; reason 
the guide of life ; self-love the foundation of moral action, 185. 

Stewart, Dugald. — Life and character, 333. Writings, 333. System 
in the main that of Reid, 334. Improves the same ; adds com- 
pleteness and symmetry, 335. Estimate by Mackintosh, 335. 
Modesty and caution with which he differs from other philoso- 
phers, 337. Impress of the man, 338. 



416 



IKDEX OF PRINCIPAL TOPICS. 



Thales. — Epoch and life, 7. The first Baconian, 7. Observation, the 
point of departure, 8. General theory stated by Aristotle ; 
by Fries ; by Ritter, 8. Water the elementary principle, and 
why, 8. World develops from this as a plant from the seed » 
the world a living soul, distinct from the human, 9. Soul the 
principle of motion, 10. Human soul immortal, 10. Is Thales 
Theist or Atheist, 10. 

Wolff, Christian. — Modifies philosophy of Leibnitz, 379. Gives the 
system a methodical form, 279. Divides philosophy into theo- 
retical and practical, 380. 

Zeno of Elea. — Eleatic, 44. Personal history, 54. System that of 
Parmenides, 55. Senses not credible, 55. Arguments multi- 
plicity and motion, 56. Sceptical tendency, 58. 

Zeno the Stoic. — Leader of the sect, 177. Life and tenets, 178. 

Xenophanes. — ^Eleatic, 44. Life, 44, Elegiac poet, 46, Opposes the 
anthropomorphism of Homer and Hesiod, 47. Theology, 49. 



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